New Zealand! "N-Zed"
How to plan a trip for New Zealand:
Step 1 - Think long and hard about how much time you think you want to spend there.
Step 2 - Double it.
Step 3 - Add it together again
Step 4 - You will accomplish up to half of what you hoped.
Blake and I did not have this handy-dandy helpful step-by-step planning guide when we planned our own trip, and so we ended up with just 8 days for this incredible little country.
Don't let it fool you, New Zealand is made up of two small looking islands, but there is so gosh darn much packed into every square inch of this country that they have to make the roads windy like the way your brain is lumpy to increase the surface area.
It takes you at least an hour longer to get anywhere than you thought it would, and everything is far more interesting than you even imagined it could be, so you want to spend at least an hour longer than you anticipated...so you see how the time adds up!
I urge you now to sit back, relax, maybe have a cup of tea (or coffee...) handy, and brace yourself against the whiplash of this whirlwind blog post outlining our jam-packed time in NZ. Ready? Go!
We left Melbourne at the ungodly hour of 6:30am and, with the time change, we arrived in Auckland around 1pm. We collected our camper van, stock image below, and stopped for a quick bite to eat on the North side of Auckland, Herne Bay, for some incredible sushi at a little Japanese restaurant! Our camper van could technically sleep 4, and no we haven't accumulated two more people simply to justify the amount of luggage we have. Apparently this was the "only model available" at the time of booking. The beds fold up to make extra room in the cabin.
New Zealand is made up of two islands which are creatively named the North and South Islands for reasons I'll let you sort out on your own. Auckland is the large city in the North Island, and Christchurch is the large city in the South. With our flight bringing us to Auckland, and with us fast realizing that our mere 8 scheduled days would in no way permit us to even get close to the South island, we settled on a quick turn about the North island. This is the first of many times in which we tightened up our schedule.
A side note on food. Aussies, and also New Zealanders ("kiwis") have a pork product called "Bacon." It is not American bacon. It is some sort of fatty pork of which the fatty bit is neither rendered by cooking nor seems to be able to be rendered by cooking when one attempts to do so. It's some floppy sad middle ground between Canadian bacon and lunchmeat. I don't like it. I may have mentioned it before. Well, I was suckered in to buying "Streaky Bacon" that looked like American bacon. It wasn't and isn't and it made for a very sad pan of "bacon" pictured above. I will now only refer to this product as "sad ham."
Day 1: I made the above pan of "sad ham" for Blake as our inaugural breakfast in our camper van. Luckily it was not indicative of the rest of our trip! Our first night was spent at the absolutely charming and somewhat oddly named "Sandspit Holiday Park." I didn't get around to asking if it was Sands Pit or Sand Spit...either way we had a lot of fun in it's kooky environs. We were especially charmed by this beautiful vintage car, named Horace.
On the topic of driving, after getting himself acquainted with the van, Blake decided it was time for me to drive. Not only have I never driven a vehicle this large, but I was going to have to do so on the WRONG (right? left? ugh...) side of the road! And did we mention that NZ has very winding roads? And did we mention that most of them are on mountains where you have a steep cliff-face on one side and a drop to certain death on the other? I'm not sure whose nerves were fried more after my turn at the wheel, mine or Blake's! Here I am happily navigating the van on open road with fields on either side, white knuckles and all.
Day 2: We made our way to a charming little winery, chatted with a quirky gal at the local coffee shop, and headed on our way up the Coromandel peninsula! We pulled into a holiday park (a place to park and plug-in the camper van) secured a spot, and settled in for the night.
Side Note: Day 2 had us stopping back in Auckland to fix a small and stupid problem with the camper van that could and should have been explained over the phone. This is the last time I will mention that we lost this precious day to such a stupid and small problem, which definitely should have been told to us over the damn phone because it was so small. And stupid.
After the geyser, we went over to the Mud Pools. These pools of boiling mud are collections of, you guessed it, minerals which form from the spewing of acidic hot water. What you can't see here is that these pools burble and glurp with as much ferocity as a pot of thick chili on a burner set to high! Watch out, as the boiling hot mud flies through the air!
Day 5 was all for Blake. He got it into his head that we should do an Alpine crossing! If you're me, you think "oh Blake likes to hike up big hills and such, this will be hard, but whatever." Did you notice how I did not consider the words "Alpine" or "Crossing?" Turns out, that means you go wayyyyy up high in a MOUNTAIN and then are supposed to go back down. Like the VonTrapps at the end of The Sound of Music. Not like Jack & Jill to fetch a pail of water.
Here we are below, eager as the day is long to start our adventure. The mountain above my head to the far right was used as the shots for Mount Doom in the Lord of the Rings movies. I'll let you read into that as much as you want to.
Remember the mountains? Good, because here we are IN THEM. I'm still smiling, so this is nice. If you look behind us off in the distance, that is where we came from. We crossed that whole snow field in our hiking boots, after climbing all the way up there in the first place. Don't worry, there's more!
There came a point, after the foothills, then the ascent, then the snowfields, when we came across a ridge. The ridge had things like chains and cables attached to it to help you climb further. It was here we also started being taken over by people with hiking poles and skis on their backs. It was here that we quickly realized that we were absolutely and completely unprepared for an Alpine Crossing. Below you will see us triumphantly deciding to turn around. We stand on the ridge. The first image is of us with our backs facing the other side of the range, where we would have tried to end up. I know it doesn't look that bad, but remember that it was and you weren't there.
This photo shows us with our backs to where we came from and where we went back through. Our decision not to attempt the full crossing was also made due to the foreboding clouds that began to cover the mountain that we were supposed to be going up.
Day 6. Having had quite enough of using our legs and feet for the day, we opted for a more romantic and charming mode of transportation. Rail travel! The thing about trains, however, is that usually, you can just see out the window to the side of you. (The following sounds sarcastic but is absolutely 100% genuine sincerity) Some genius came up with the brilliant idea of creating self-contained, fully-automated, self-driving vehicles which allow you, a lay person, to experience riding at the front of the train, with the 360 degree views usually only afforded to a conductor! This is called RailCruising, and it is the most amazing idea and experience in the whole world. Go to New Zealand just for this. Absolutely worth it. Here, Blake and I enjoy the cozy comfort of our little RailCruiser car, which took us along a leased section of actual, real railroad, with guided narration. Clickity-clack indeed!
The view was exhilarating, and at times you scoot along at a rather speedy pace!
At this time they only do one back and forth journey, so when you get to the end of their route, they pop you on a little turn table and turn the whole little RailCruiser around! Here we are ready to shoot back on the return journey.
For lunch we found a shop which makes their own bagels, including a GLUTEN FREE variety!! I was very excited as most gluten free bagels are just GF bread shaped like a donut, but these were dare I say, not terrible!
Step 1 - Think long and hard about how much time you think you want to spend there.
Step 2 - Double it.
Step 3 - Add it together again
Step 4 - You will accomplish up to half of what you hoped.
Blake and I did not have this handy-dandy helpful step-by-step planning guide when we planned our own trip, and so we ended up with just 8 days for this incredible little country.
Don't let it fool you, New Zealand is made up of two small looking islands, but there is so gosh darn much packed into every square inch of this country that they have to make the roads windy like the way your brain is lumpy to increase the surface area.
It takes you at least an hour longer to get anywhere than you thought it would, and everything is far more interesting than you even imagined it could be, so you want to spend at least an hour longer than you anticipated...so you see how the time adds up!
I urge you now to sit back, relax, maybe have a cup of tea (or coffee...) handy, and brace yourself against the whiplash of this whirlwind blog post outlining our jam-packed time in NZ. Ready? Go!
We left Melbourne at the ungodly hour of 6:30am and, with the time change, we arrived in Auckland around 1pm. We collected our camper van, stock image below, and stopped for a quick bite to eat on the North side of Auckland, Herne Bay, for some incredible sushi at a little Japanese restaurant! Our camper van could technically sleep 4, and no we haven't accumulated two more people simply to justify the amount of luggage we have. Apparently this was the "only model available" at the time of booking. The beds fold up to make extra room in the cabin.
New Zealand is made up of two islands which are creatively named the North and South Islands for reasons I'll let you sort out on your own. Auckland is the large city in the North Island, and Christchurch is the large city in the South. With our flight bringing us to Auckland, and with us fast realizing that our mere 8 scheduled days would in no way permit us to even get close to the South island, we settled on a quick turn about the North island. This is the first of many times in which we tightened up our schedule.
A side note on food. Aussies, and also New Zealanders ("kiwis") have a pork product called "Bacon." It is not American bacon. It is some sort of fatty pork of which the fatty bit is neither rendered by cooking nor seems to be able to be rendered by cooking when one attempts to do so. It's some floppy sad middle ground between Canadian bacon and lunchmeat. I don't like it. I may have mentioned it before. Well, I was suckered in to buying "Streaky Bacon" that looked like American bacon. It wasn't and isn't and it made for a very sad pan of "bacon" pictured above. I will now only refer to this product as "sad ham."
Day 1: I made the above pan of "sad ham" for Blake as our inaugural breakfast in our camper van. Luckily it was not indicative of the rest of our trip! Our first night was spent at the absolutely charming and somewhat oddly named "Sandspit Holiday Park." I didn't get around to asking if it was Sands Pit or Sand Spit...either way we had a lot of fun in it's kooky environs. We were especially charmed by this beautiful vintage car, named Horace.
On the topic of driving, after getting himself acquainted with the van, Blake decided it was time for me to drive. Not only have I never driven a vehicle this large, but I was going to have to do so on the WRONG (right? left? ugh...) side of the road! And did we mention that NZ has very winding roads? And did we mention that most of them are on mountains where you have a steep cliff-face on one side and a drop to certain death on the other? I'm not sure whose nerves were fried more after my turn at the wheel, mine or Blake's! Here I am happily navigating the van on open road with fields on either side, white knuckles and all.
Day 2: We made our way to a charming little winery, chatted with a quirky gal at the local coffee shop, and headed on our way up the Coromandel peninsula! We pulled into a holiday park (a place to park and plug-in the camper van) secured a spot, and settled in for the night.
Side Note: Day 2 had us stopping back in Auckland to fix a small and stupid problem with the camper van that could and should have been explained over the phone. This is the last time I will mention that we lost this precious day to such a stupid and small problem, which definitely should have been told to us over the damn phone because it was so small. And stupid.
Day 3: we headed up to Hot Water Beach. Hot springs under the beach bubble up in various places, allowing you to attempt to dig a little pool without scalding yourself, but also without freezing from the waves of ocean water that inevitably fill and wreck your delicate little sand pile. It was mightily crowded, as you can see, and the hot springs are not only very difficult to figure out, but also seem to change flow without warning. One could make a 4 hour instructional video on how to locate a spring, appropriately dig a hole, and enjoy this experience. Blake and I wallowed in our luke warm shallow amidst the tourists and crying babies and then called it a day. Below is me attempting in vain to simultaneously make our pool deeper while not eroding the wall of the neighboring family's pool.
After sneaking a shower from previous night's accommodation, we headed down to Rotorua, our next destination. Rotorua was known for something called the Pink and White Terraces, allegedly the largest silica deposits in the world, which were buried in water and ash when the volcano erupted in 1886. Now it is known as a very large lake with an island in the middle of it. For my Star Island friends, this island is sadly missing a lake in the center.
Blake and I took gondolas, in the far lower right of the photo below, up to the top of a nearby ridge to achieve this selfie of us in front of this lake and island. If you look close you can see the Pink and White Terraces. That's a joke, they're underwater.
Day 4: Rotorua is in close proximity to Wai-o-tapu Thermal Wonderland, New Zealand's answer to Yellow Stone National Park. It is a very active geothermic area with various smelly gasses and scalding hot liquids bubbling up from deep within the earth. New Zealand is a very new little set of islands, geologically speaking, and is still quite active! Below is me enjoying what I can only assume was the inspiration for "The Labyrinth's" Bog of Eternal Stench.
Aside from the odor, we were quite taken with the beautiful sights and formations created by these bubbling minerals. Below, Blake steps out from behind the camera to be photographed with the Primrose Terrace, formed by mineral rich water trickling down and slowly building up these lace-like formations!
No, Blake and I did not discover where Nickelodeon mines its slime! The aptly named Devil's Bath is a pool or mineral rich water which is naturally lime green! It smells just awful.
Our visit to this amazing geothermal park would not be complete without a viewing of the Geyser! The Geyser at Waiotapu erupts everyday at 10:15am. How does she erupt so regularly, you ask? Well, they induce her with a mild surfactant which does some sort of sciency thing in encouraging the hot water and steam from deep in the earth to spew forth violently! It was cool, but we were honestly a little disappointed.
After the geyser, we went over to the Mud Pools. These pools of boiling mud are collections of, you guessed it, minerals which form from the spewing of acidic hot water. What you can't see here is that these pools burble and glurp with as much ferocity as a pot of thick chili on a burner set to high! Watch out, as the boiling hot mud flies through the air!
Because we took a detour to see the aforementioned semi-natural geyser, we did not get to see as much of the park as we wanted, so with our hands stamped from earlier, we went back for a second look! I will let you silently enjoy these next few photos. Over boil an egg and shell it while looking to get the full experience.
Day 5 was all for Blake. He got it into his head that we should do an Alpine crossing! If you're me, you think "oh Blake likes to hike up big hills and such, this will be hard, but whatever." Did you notice how I did not consider the words "Alpine" or "Crossing?" Turns out, that means you go wayyyyy up high in a MOUNTAIN and then are supposed to go back down. Like the VonTrapps at the end of The Sound of Music. Not like Jack & Jill to fetch a pail of water.
Here we are below, eager as the day is long to start our adventure. The mountain above my head to the far right was used as the shots for Mount Doom in the Lord of the Rings movies. I'll let you read into that as much as you want to.
The hike started picturesque and gentle enough, a gravel path winding its way through the foothills and scrubby brush. See those mountains off in the distance, to the left? Remember those.
Remember the mountains? Good, because here we are IN THEM. I'm still smiling, so this is nice. If you look behind us off in the distance, that is where we came from. We crossed that whole snow field in our hiking boots, after climbing all the way up there in the first place. Don't worry, there's more!
There came a point, after the foothills, then the ascent, then the snowfields, when we came across a ridge. The ridge had things like chains and cables attached to it to help you climb further. It was here we also started being taken over by people with hiking poles and skis on their backs. It was here that we quickly realized that we were absolutely and completely unprepared for an Alpine Crossing. Below you will see us triumphantly deciding to turn around. We stand on the ridge. The first image is of us with our backs facing the other side of the range, where we would have tried to end up. I know it doesn't look that bad, but remember that it was and you weren't there.
This photo shows us with our backs to where we came from and where we went back through. Our decision not to attempt the full crossing was also made due to the foreboding clouds that began to cover the mountain that we were supposed to be going up.
This view is from just after we recrossed the snowfield and began our descent back into the foothills. You can see the partially curated gravel path and rudimentary steps leading down to the scrublands. It was very, very, very far.
Day 6. Having had quite enough of using our legs and feet for the day, we opted for a more romantic and charming mode of transportation. Rail travel! The thing about trains, however, is that usually, you can just see out the window to the side of you. (The following sounds sarcastic but is absolutely 100% genuine sincerity) Some genius came up with the brilliant idea of creating self-contained, fully-automated, self-driving vehicles which allow you, a lay person, to experience riding at the front of the train, with the 360 degree views usually only afforded to a conductor! This is called RailCruising, and it is the most amazing idea and experience in the whole world. Go to New Zealand just for this. Absolutely worth it. Here, Blake and I enjoy the cozy comfort of our little RailCruiser car, which took us along a leased section of actual, real railroad, with guided narration. Clickity-clack indeed!
The view was exhilarating, and at times you scoot along at a rather speedy pace!
At this time they only do one back and forth journey, so when you get to the end of their route, they pop you on a little turn table and turn the whole little RailCruiser around! Here we are ready to shoot back on the return journey.
After all that fun we thought we would have some more! We ended our day with a tour of a Blueberry Farm! As usual we were too busy having fun to take out the camera! We were the only two people on the tour, so the farmer/owner had quite a captive audience. There are certainly a lot of varieties of blueberries! I do believe we ate them all at lunch, where I had a delicious lamb and gooseberry pot pie. We then went over to a small petting-zoo farm, and I got to say hello to a little baby llama. She didn't seem to keen on me, but we got along alright.
Unfortunately Day 6 was a race to get back to Auckland and return the camper van. The few hopes we had for plans in the morning were shot by the lack of planning for them, and we simply headed back to Auckland. We had thought ahead and booked 2 nights at an Airbnb, which afforded us sleep on a proper bed, instead of a glorified couch cushion, and a real, hot, indoor shower!
Day 7 gave us some dedicated time to exploring Auckland. We walked down by the harbor, and I wish I could describe to you the blue-green of the water. I desperately wanted a photo with this gorgeous water, but sadly it just doesn't translate into photographs.
For lunch we found a shop which makes their own bagels, including a GLUTEN FREE variety!! I was very excited as most gluten free bagels are just GF bread shaped like a donut, but these were dare I say, not terrible!
It's a funky-punky kind of place, where they call out your order and everyone repeats it and there is a constant rhythm of production. Below are my bagel with avocado, and Blake's cream cheese and jam.
Our last day in NZ wasn't a day so much as a bleary-eyed 4am ride to the airport. We absolutely plan to go again.
Up next...24 hours in Melbourne, The Great Southern Rail, and Adelaide it is!
Fantastic! Oh man. You're inspiring! That hike looks like.... this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9cQgQIMlwWw&feature=youtu.be&t=6
ReplyDeleteMiss y'all.