The Camps in New Zealand--The North Island

 

On most of our trips, we’re lucky to get one or two photos with the two of us together. This time we got a lot more because our tour director kept offering to take them. Unfortunately, we don’t seem to have any joint photos from the North Island, so I will have to give you individual ones. Since I’m the photographer, I’m fortunate to even have one of just me, but the tour guide at Hobbiton took it. The first photo shows me as a Hobbit, and the second has Roland checking the bath temperature at the thermal village. More about both later.

Our North Island adventure started on Valentines Day there (although it was February 13 in the U.S.). The plan was to fly from Queenstown on the South Island to Rotorua on the North Island, with a connecting flight at Christchurch on the South Island. We got up at 3:00 a.m. and made our first flight without any issues. When we reached Christchurch, however, we discovered that our second flight had been cancelled because Cyclone Gabrielle was supposedly headed to Rotorua. But our awesome tour director got us onto a flight to Auckland, where the worst of the cyclone was already supposed to have passed. Then she arranged for the bus driver who was supposed to meet us in Rotorua to meet us in Auckland, instead.

So far, so good.

The plane to Auckland actually had enough legroom for Roland and arrived on time. Then we sat on the tarmac for about 1½ hours before they freed a gate for us to disembark. That was the beginning of our tribulations.

When we finally made it into the terminal, it was a madhouse. We must have been about the last plane to make it in, because the first thing we heard on entering the terminal was that all flights in and out had been cancelled. You would think this wouldn’t affect us since we were being picked up by bus, but you’d be wrong. They were unloading all the checked luggage on the cancelled flights first, and word was that ours would not be available until the next day. Our luggage wasn’t lost—we knew exactly where it was—but we couldn’t get at it. Rather than have us wait around with no place to sleep in Auckland, our tour director sent us on with the driver while she stayed behind to wait for the luggage. Here is a photo that shows you a bit of the madness at the airport.

Roland had packed some emergency clothes in his carryon luggage but this was about the first time I hadn’t. So I washed out some underwear and wore Roland’s swim trunks and my fleecy to bed. Fortunately, I had my contact stuff in my carryon. The bus driver bought toothbrushes and toothpaste for everyone, and the situation made for interesting conversation among the group since we were all in the same boat (or plane or bus).

By sending us ahead with the bus driver, the tour director also got us to Rotorua in time for our evening activity, which was a Māori Village and Hangi Feast. Hangi is a cooking method where they steam the food in the ground to give it the flavor of the wood. The feast was held in a banquet hall with a number of tour groups and was preceded by a show that was clearly designed for tourists. Even so, the food was good and the show was entertaining. The next two photos show the food where it was cooked and the setting for the show.

I had signed up for a tour of Hobbiton for the next morning, but Roland had no interest in going. The plan had been for him to do the laundry while I was gone, but that was hijacked when our luggage was. So he relaxed and walked around town a bit.

For those of you who don’t know what Hobbiton is, it is the movie set for the home town of the main characters in the Hobbit movies, based on The Hobbit by J.R. Tolkien. (A Hobbit is a type of creature, sort of like calling us people.) In a joint venture between the farmer who owns the land and Peter Jackson (director) and the company that produced the movies, they took the temporary set and turned it into a permanent tourist attraction. They did a really nice job with it, and I learned a lot about the production of the movies during the 1½ hour tour through the set. The first photo at the head of this post shows me peering around a door in one of the Hobbit houses. (We didn’t get to go inside any, however.) The photos below show Frodo’s Hobbit Hole (home), another Hobbit Hole, the mill, and the Green Dragon pub, all from the book and the movies.

In the afternoon, our tour director arrived with the luggage but we didn’t have time to change before we were off for a gondola ride and wine-tasting on Mt. Ngongotaha. Then we visited a jade-carving factory and walked through a redwood forest before setting out for another Māori dinner that was more solemn but told much the same story we had heard the night before. It was also less touristy, however, and we were the only group there. The next two photos are of  Rotorua from Mt. Ngongotaha and Roland showing the size of a redwood.

The next day we loaded our luggage on the bus for our trip back to Auckland—on purpose this time. Before we actually left Rotorua, however, we toured the Te Whakarewarewa Living Thermal Village, which is where Roland is testing the temperature of the water in the photo at the top of this post. It is a Māori village built on top of a thermal field. Part of the tribe moved to that location many years ago after their village was wiped out by a volcano. They use the thermal pools in ways that don’t disrupt their natural state, so they don’t pipe hot water into their homes. They have more traditional heating there. And although they use the thermal heat to cook some of their food, they have regular stoves, too. The next four photos show a pool where food is quickly cooked by dipping it in, another pool that provides the heated water for the baths, a geyser, and part of the village partly obscured by the steam.

As we traveled from Rotorua to Auckland, I was remined of the differences between the two islands. Aside from the weather (the South Island is colder than the North), the South Island was carved out by glaciers and there are a number of sheep farms. The North Island was created by volcanos and primarily raises cattle. The next two photos show the gently rolling green hills of the North Island and two volcanic mounds.

When we arrived at Auckland, we visited the Auckland Museum and then took a driving tour through the town. It was a beautiful day, and most of the damage from the cyclone had already been cleaned up. The next photos show the skyline, the bay, and two of the mansions overlooking the bay. I love the pink one, but it is owned by the owner of a pink “pleasure palace,” and many people in Auckland see the color of the mansion as an insult.

Our final day in Auckland was on our own except for a farewell dinner at the hotel, so we rode up the Sky Tower for views of Auckland, finished our Christmas shopping, and walked along the wharf. The final two photos show the Sky Tower and a view of Auckland from above.

Our flight home left at 2:00 p.m. on Saturday, February 18, and arrived just after 2:00 p.m. on Saturday, Friday 18. No, we weren’t using a Star Trek transporter machine, but we did cross the International Date Line.

We arrived home tired but happy after a great trip.

Now I’ll have to think of something else to blog about next week.

The Camps in New Zealand--The South Island

 

From Australia we flew to New Zealand’s South Island.

Although there are many islands in New Zealand, the two main ones—and by far the largest—are the South Island and the North Island. We spent time on both, but this week’s post will concentrate on the South Island.

We flew into Queenstown, New Zealand and took a gondola ride up Bob’s Peak while we waited for our rooms to be ready. The photo at the top of this post shows Roland and me at the top of Bob’s Peak with Lake Wakatipu in the background.

New Zealand’s scenery is very different from Australia’s, filled with barren mountains and lakes. Just because the mountains are barren doesn’t mean they aren’t beautiful, though. The next photos show the mountains surrounding the airport, Lake Wakatipu, Queenstown from above, and the telephone in the bathroom of our room at the Hilton. (Roland just had to have that photo).

We spent the next day in Queenstown, which was my least favorite place on the trip. It reminds me of Traverse City, Michigan, or any other lakeside town that caters to tourists. Nothing against those towns, which are fine for people who like small shops or watersports (Queenstown also had parasailing, ziplining, etc.). Even I like them fine for an hour or two, but then they start boring me. We spent most of our time walking through a park that they called a botanical garden but wasn’t as heavy on the flowers as I’m used to. The highlight of Queenstown was Fergburger, which advertises the best burger in the world. It was very good and worth the long wait. The next two photos show Queenstown and the long line at Fergburger.

We were late leaving for our hotel because our bus got into an argument with a camper van. The bus was parked and suffered only minor damage and the driver wasn’t hurt at all, but the accident delayed us for about an hour when I was already bored with Queenstown.

The original idea had been to spend two nights in Queenstown back to back, but there was some event going on (a marathon or a bicycle race?) that made hotel rooms hard to come by, so we drove from Queenstown to Te Anau, where we spent two nights. On the way, we drove through farming country, where there are lots of sheep. They don’t pay for themselves these days, though, so many of the farmers are also planting hops. I don’t think we saw any hops fields, but I did get a number of photos of sheep, all taken from the bus window as we drove by. Since they look like any other sheep, I won’t include a photo.

The next morning we drove to Mitford Sound in Fiordland National Park. On the way we stopped at Mirror Lake. We also passed a snow-covered mountain, which I photographed from the bus window as we drove by. Those are the next two photos.

The highlight of the day, however, and also one of the highlights of the trip, was our cruise on Mitford Sound (which is really a fiord). Our cruise director was very excited that the clear weather allowed us to see the top of Mitre Peak (so named because it is shaped like a Roman Catholic Cardinal’s mitre hat). Apparently it is like Denali in Alaska, where you can see the top only about 10% of the time. There were also a number of waterfalls along Mitford Sound. The next two photos show Mitre Peak and one of the waterfalls.                           

That night we took a tour through the interconnected Glow Worm Caves, which was really cool. The roof of the caves looked like a clear sky filled with stars. That’s my description, anyway. All I could see was the white glow that stars give off. Roland saw some green and blue. Photographs weren’t allowed, but they wouldn’t have come out, anyway.

On Monday we returned to Queensland with two stops on the way. The first was at the Kawarau Bridge, which is the suspension bridge where bungy jumping was born. We didn’t have time for anyone from our group to do it, but I got a photo of someone leaving the platform. Look for the red shirt. The other photo is the bathroom sign there.

The second stop was at Arrowtown, which was a gold rush town in the mid-1800s and is now a tourist stop. The second-most interesting thing at Arrowtown is an area that shows how the Chinese lived in those days. They weren’t allowed to dig for gold until the whites decided it was too much work to try to get anything else from a spot, but the Chinese were hard workers and made out okay. The next two photos show the main street of modern-day Arrowtown and one of the Chinese houses, which, as you can see by comparing it with Roland, was pretty small.

But the most interesting thing in Arrowtown was the public toilets. They were totally electronic, and the only manual thing in them was the person using them. They give you ten minutes to do your business (with a warning at minute nine). If you aren’t done by then, the door automatically opens and puts you on view to the world. In fact, there were a number of interesting toilet signs in New Zealand. The next two photos show the bank of toilets and the sign warning you about the time limit, and the last two are signs that appeared in a number of public toilets around the country.

That night we ordered room service and watched the St. Paul’s service on the internet. Then we went to bed since we had an early flight to the North Island on Valentine’s Day. More about that next week.