Whirlwind Tour of New Zealand

With driving every day I was too tired to do any entries during our week in NZ. Plus the internet access everywhere was frequently slow, intermittent, and expensive. So here are some notes from our NZ trek. I’ll add pictures in a few days if I get good internet access in the Cook Islands or Tahiti.

July 28^th/29^th  Flew from Malaysia to Auckland on Malaysia Airlines and spent the night at hotel near airport. We did have time to take an Uber into central Auckland where we went to the top of the sky tower and then had dinner at a little middle eastern restaurant nearby. Then an Uber back to the hotel so we could get ready to pick up the camper tomorrow

July 30^th. We decided to see NZ in what is a fairly classic way. We were going to pick up a campervan in Auckland and drive through the north and south islands finishing in Christchurch. RV culture is really a big thing in NZ with many tourists and locals using RV’s to see the country.  We probably passed even more RV’s on the road here than we did in the Yukon a few years ago although the over all level of traffic was the lowest of anywhere I’ve ever been. Sometimes you could drive for miles without passing a single car in either direction. We stayed almost exclusively in holiday parks. These are maybe what I imagine KOA campgrounds used to be like.  They offer motel rooms, cabins, bunk rooms, powered sites and unpowered sites.  Some are really nice with hot tubs, pools, playgrounds, communal kitchens, and heated showers. Some seem like little more than trailer parks. They seem to be very popular and even though it was mid winter some of the most popular ones were nearly sold out.

    We picked up our camper van and were on the road by 11am or so. First stop was Rotorua. This is an area a bit like Yellowstone with a beautiful lake surrounded by geysers, mudpots, and hotsprings. The road there was through rolling green hills so bucolic that the area was used in Lord of the Rings for scenes in The Shire. We wanted to do one of the quintessential NZ tourist activities-rolling down a big hill in a giant hamster ball full of water so we went to “OGO”. They had hot tubs at the top and bottom of the hill since it was only about 50 degrees out. You ride an old truck up to the top of the hill and then roll down in a big inflated hamster ball with about 10 gallons of water sloshing around the insides. Its kind of like being inside a washing machine and kind of like riding down a long waterslide.

   After OGO we went to our first holiday park. Turns out this one was probably the best of our trip with several hot tubs, a pool, and best of all heat lamps in the showers. Shortly after we got there we headed out to a Maori cultural show. It could have been very Epcot/Disney like but the humor, sincerity, and talent of the performers made the whole thing better and more genuine. It included demonstrations of several Maori cultural practices, a bunch of singing and dancing, and a big hangi buffet. Hangi is food cooked underground with hot rocks in a steam pit. The actual food was a lot like Thanksgiving dinner but with lamb instead of turkey.

Hangi meal

    July 31.  We got up early and hit the road by 6:30 or so. Plan was to drive to Mt. Ruapehu and ski at Whakapapa ski fields.  We got there about 900 or 9:30 and were on the slopes by shortly after 10. It’s a dormant volcano and in fact the ski area was closed by an eruption a few years ago. The entire area is well above tree line and the runs are carved between mounds of lava or ash. Ski off the runs here and you are likely to hit jagged walls of rock instead of trees. Today at least you couldn’t ski off the runs because the runs were groomed and lined with piles of ice painted blue so you could see the edges in the fog. Off piste the snow was actually glare ice. The kind you would need ice climbing equipment to get up or down safely. Once we got above the sea of clouds though the scenery was beautiful. Jagged ice covered peaks with an actual volcanic cone in the near distance. We skied until a bit after 1pm and then had lunch and called it a day. We drove to Whanegui holiday park on the west coast. OK but not as nice as Rotorua with no heat in bathrooms.

   August 1^st. A few hours drive down to Wellington. Pulled over on the way down at a random road side café called “Quarter Acre”.  Turns out our waitress was from Montana. Seems like lots of people we meet here are from somewhere else. Food and gardens though were very good there. In Wellington we were staying at the Capital Gateway hotel and holiday park. The holiday park in this case was just a parking lot with room for about a dozen campers but I chose the place because it was closest to the ferry terminal. We just had time to get an Uber downtown and ride the funicular up the hill above town. 

Then another Uber over to the Zealandia preserve. Zealandia is a nature preserve with a mission of restoring an entire valley to look like it did before the arrival of the Maori or Europeans. Prior to their arrival there were no mammals in NZ other than maybe some bats. There were giant vegetarian birds bigger than ostriches, eagles larger than any others on earth, and kiwis. There were no land based predators at all. The cats, dogs, weasels, rats, possums, and pigs nearly wiped out the native birds. Zealandia built a giant mammal proof barrier around the whole valley and then set out to get rid of all the mammals. The result has been restoration of many endangered birds. We signed up for a guided night tour led by a naturalist. The goal was to see a kiwi which they advertise as happening about 75-80% of the time. The tour was awesome. We saw native owls, ducks, cormorants, glow worms, parrots, Takahai, and toward the end of the tour we watched a little spotted kiwi hunt around in the leaf litter for food for about 5 minutes. It was awesome.No pictures though because the whole thing was in the dark using faint red flashlights

    August 2^nd. Today was basically a travel day. We drove straight to the ferry terminal and got on a huge car ferry loaded with campers, cars, and even trucks loaded with livestock. It was a 4 hour cruise over to Picton on the south island. Very scenic. Then it was a short drive to Blenheim to pick up a birthday cake ordered on the internet months ago for Margaret and then a long drive to Greymouth on the west coast. We did stop on the way to see a waterfall that was apparently created by an earthquake 100 years ago. It was a wide waterfall and about 30 feet high. Once in Greymouth we had dinner at what was probably the only formal restaurant in town.

Ferry route into South Island

Maruia River Falls

    August 3^rd. Plan today was to drive down the west coast today to Haast. We were going to stop at the National Kiwi centre in Hokitika in case we hadn’t seen a kiwi yet. Even though we had seen a little spotted kiwi in Zealandia we stopped anyway to see their large brown kiwis. These kiwis can survive in the wild once they are about 5 years old and big enough to fight off the weasel and cats so they are raised in places like this until they can be released in the wild. The kiwi centre also had a big tank full of 6 foot long 100 year old freshwater eels. Kids got to feed and pet the eels. Then we stopped for dinner at a road side café in Hari Hari. Next we stopped in Fox glacier. Initially the plan was to take a few pictures of the glacier and then move on to Haast. The scenery was dramatic with the Southern Alps and Mt. Cook towering over coastal rainforest full of tree ferns and other plants that looked like they were from Jurassic Park. It was so nice we decided to stop early at the Fox Glacier holiday park. No heated bathrooms but they did have a hot tub and some of the best scenery. We road our bikes into town to the local general store to get supplies then we rode back and cooked dinner in the communal kitchen.

Feeding eels

Mt. Cook on way to Fox Glacier

Fox Glacier viewed through the clouds

Our camper in Fox Glacier campground

   August 4^th.  Went back to take more pictures of Mt. Cook and Fox glacier now that the clouds had cleared. Then it was a long drive with few stops on our way to Lake Tekapo. The scenery changed dramatically as soon as we got up and over the Southern Alps. On the west coast it was wet with rainforests, glaciers, and impressive blue rivers. On the east side there are lakes but its otherwise much drier. It was grass and pines and bare mountains and really reminded us a lot of Colorado. Hard to believe you could a temperate rainforest and just 40 miles away dry bare mountains. Plan in Lake Tekapo was to do a night sky tour at Mt. John observatory. We had dinner at a local restaurant and then went to the observatory. Tekapo is internationally known as a dark sky preserve with strict rules on outer lighting. This is done to protect the observatory on top of Mt John. Even our shuttle bus had to drive up the mountain with very dim red bulbs for headlights. Once on top though the night sky was unlike anything I”ve ever seen. It looked like those sky photos you see but figure they were heavily photoshopped. Just to prove they aren’t I will include a picture taken with Syd’s camera. The Milky Way spanned the entire sky from north to south. You could also see the Magellanic Clouds with your naked eye. The tour included multiple telescopes set up to see planets and star clusters but just looking at the sky with your eye was breathtaking.

Family portrait in front of Mt. Cook

Morning view from campground as sun hits Southern Alps

Panoramic shot-Looks better blown up more

Fox Glacier towering over farmlands

Night sky picture taken with Syd's camera with 30mm lens. No photoshop. Never
would have believed it if I hadn't seen it for myself. 

    August 5^th. Went to Tekapo hot springs for a quick soak right after leaving our holiday park. More tourists and campers here than anywhere else on our trip so far. Then a short drive down to Christchurch to drop off the camper. Early on the morning of the 6^th we flew Christchurch to Auckland to Rarotonga to Aitutaki. So we are now in the Cook Islands and having crossed the dateline its now the 5^th again. Pictures soon.