10 days in the North Island, our drive covered 1,196 miles.
The first 4 days we explored around the city of Auckland, then ventured up to the very top end of the North Island, before turning south towards Rotorua.
The drive towards Rotorua, in the Bay of Plenty was a slow 6 hours covering 285 miles, just 30 - 50 mph in many places, giving us plenty of time to take in the fantasic scenery.
Despite most of the drive being on single carriageway, it was an interesting journey, amusing to be driving through places that were familiar in the UK, including Hamilton, Epsom, Newmarket and Cambridge.
Arriving at our accommodation (Arista) via the Thermal Explorer Highway (aka Highway 1), named due to to the vast thermal activity in the area, a faint smell of sulphur hung in the air, likely from the thermal spouts throwing up high plumes of steam around the area, strangely after a day or so, the smell seemed less pungent, either that or the wind direction had shifted. It didn't go unnoticed that the town is also referred to as Rotten-roa!
At our motel, we were greeted by a long serving resident, Colonel Boris, a small tortoise shell cat with a very friendly disposition, he insisted on being door guard for the majority of the time we were there. We later found out the Colonel is highly rated on Trip Advisor for his customer support skills, perhaps he'll get another write up!!
Our first day in town, was a balmy 28 degrees, so we decided to take the skyline gondola, and purchase a 5 ride ticket for the luge, (a zippy wee thing that is part go-cart... part toboggan!). Speeds did get up, and we had a great time zipping down the hillsides following the various different tracks downhill through the vast number of tall pine trees, interspersed with a trip to the bar for a refresher to enjoy the great view overlooking the town and Lake Rotorua.
In the later afternoon sun, we opted to do the Redwoods high trees walk, boasting to be the world's longest living tree walk of 700m.
Just a short drive around the lake, we arrived into an area with many 50m plus high redwood trees, and a high wire tree walk, all connected by swing bridges (similar to the I'm a Celebrity wooden bridges).
As a conservation project it was really interesting, the resourceful kiwis have taken the californian redwood and made a sustainable exportable building source, a rather large redwood ring was proudly on display showing a tree of over 2100 years.
The following day we headed for Taupo, on Lake Taupo, the lake boasting to be same size as Singapore.
The town of Taupo was akin to an upmarket sea side resort with lovely sandy beaches and a hot water thermal inlet, which we came across by chance on a little walkabout after a great lunch in the chic little town.
The hot water beach was quite unassuming, the water got warmer the more you dug your toes into the sand, particularly if you paddled out knee deep from the shore. Small rocks had been used to dam up small pools that you could lounge in. As it was not an advertised location tourists seemed largely absent, this made the experience much more chilled and enjoyable.
One notable stopping point on our drive between Taupo and Rotorua was at Aratiatia Rapids, where we found the Huka Falls, seemingly this fast running waters featured in a film about hobbits.
In the evening we headed back to Rotorua for an indignenous cultural experience, visiting the Mitai Māori village, where we were greeted by the tribe spokesperson, giving an overview of what to expect, before heading off on a tour of the village.
Prior to the Hangi (earth oven) meal, where the food is cooked underground, (hospitality dictates you eat as a guest at a Māori village), we first headed out for a bush walk, visiting their sacred Fairy Spring which was impressive by its constant bubbling pools of fresh water coming out of the ground.
The villagers gave a great re-enactment in traditional warrior dress, paddling their waka (canoe) up the river, chanting an arrival song before demonstrating their weaponry and forms of combat. We also were given a talk on their tattoo art and what the various markings meant to both male and female. Suffice to say we are still both tattoo free!
After the hangi we had a final walk through their grounds that took us past some glow worms.. (more of them in the South Island).
The next day we headed south towards Wellington, a city located at the southern end of the North Island, as we would be taking a 3 hour ferry to cross the Cook Strait to the South Island a couple of days later.
To our amusement on the drive to the official capital, we went through various self proclaimed capitals.
Firstly, south of Lake Taupo our favourite was Taihape, their claim being the "Gum Boot Capital of NZ", lots of shops selling Gum boots and gum boot paraphenalia. Their advertised Gum Boot Day is not until mid March, sadly we'll have to give this year a miss as we will be back in the UK. A close run 2nd was the town of Bulls (north of Wellington) their welcoming sign: “Herd of Bulls? A town like no udder.”
Other towns we also went through had a variety of welcoming signs, giant 10ft fish of varying types being the stand out favourite.
The weather has been incredibly kind during our trip being in shorts and t shirts since Hong Kong, and not a drop of rain, so our drive down to Wellington (aka Whanganui -A-Tui) was a little surprise as the clear blue skies were replaced with some low level cloud and the odd rain shower on and off for a few hours.
Luckily on arrival the sun came back out and we headed for our accommodation, (Boulcott Suites).
We have been taking turns driving, so whoever was the passenger would hop out and check in to our various hotels and motels, on this occasion I was parked outside for what seemed like an age, when Jo eventually returned from the hotel reception to give the necesssary directions.
Uttering ... "erm there has been a maintenance issue with our room .....so we have been moved to the penthouse" not something I was expecting her to say.
Intrigued, we found our way to the top floor to our home for the next 2 nights, finding a 3 bed 3 bath penthouse, huge living space with separate dining room and a panoramic wrap around balcony on 3 sides giving great views of the city, all in all a very large comfortable plush pad that we both were rather pleased to find ourselves in.
We had a fully functioning kitchen, so after a number of days eating out, we ventured out to a local supermarket and cooked that evening.
The next morning was a full day of exploring Wellington.
The city is very compact and walkable, so exploring the area was fairly easy, firstly we had to return our hire car to the office a couple of streets away, as we could not take a car across on the ferry.
Once done was started to explore a little more, and wandering around town we came across a grand building known as the "Beehive" the parliament building which luckily lived up to its name and resembled a large concrete beehive! The quayside, a bustling area of bars and cafes in old buildings was also an interesting meander.
Our second cable car journey of this trip was on the more bijous end of the cable car spectrum, a small 2 car funicular which left from Lampton Quay and made its way up to the Kelburn Terminal, at the top of the hill overlooking the city.
A cable car museum at the top offered an interesting history of the build of the railway, which commenced in 1899, with huge influences from the industrious scots, (NB: Viscount Kelburn was the son of Lord Glasgow).
An early start was needed on our final day on the North Island, we were booked on the 8.15am InterInlander Ferry (Blue Bridge) sailing, with checking at least 1 hour before departure.
Our destination would take us to Picton (South Island), taking 3 and a half hours to cross the Cook Strait, the Tasman Sea to the north east, the South Pacific Ocean on the south east. In Māori the strait is known as Te Moana-o-Raukawa, (NB, Moana means sea, with the Māoris pronouncing it Moan-ah, rather than the Disney version of Mo-an-ah).
The crossing was incredibly picturesque as we traversed between the numerous islands, making our way to Picton, where we picked up hire car No2.
Next chapter ..... the South Island.....whales, seals, sea lions and little blue penguins!!
Like the sound of the penthouse for a couple of days.