The road to Napier from Taupo was around 138km long and we were warned at the start of the road that there would be no petrol station for 136km. This pretty much told us all we needed to know. It was going to be a long road with not a lot on it. There was a half way point cafe and we thought to ourselves, why not put a petrol station here? It would probably save some issues for the stupid people who didn’t bother to check their tank before heading off on the road. We were happy to see that the weather had lifted by the time we made it to Napier and there was even some blue sky  in the distance. We decided we had made the right choice.

Initially, we thought we would try and find a free campsite with a toilet. We had just driven further than we had expected to, therefore using more petrol, but when we got to the free campsite it was PACKED!! It looked like people were living there with some of the setups they had going on. No-one was doing anything other than eating and drinking, which I always feel is a bit of a waste of time. If we’d squeezed ourself into a parking space then we wouldn’t have been able to leave again as we would have lost the space. Not worth it. We checked into a lovely little holiday park and the lady at reception told us about some different wineries that we could visit the next day. Napier is located in the Hawkes Bay region, which I’m sure any of the wine drinkers, who are reading this, will know about. We decided that we needed to do something relatively ‘normal’ that night and headed into town to watch Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them. We both loved it and had a great evening. Simon was a bit miffed at the start that they only did buttery salty popcorn, but enjoyed it in the end.

The next morning we were going to hit a few of Napier’s top attractions, but first, we had been told by a resident of the holiday park that across the road there was a market, Bay View Market, which only happened once every year. We thought we’d go and check it out expecting it to be a bit like Chatsworth or Royal Cornwall. I mean, it only happens once a year! It was a bit more like a car boot… with a splash of fairground. No rides. Just a few games and a young band. We walked around it in about 40 minutes having purchased nothing. Oh well!

Next we headed off to a Sheep Skin Tanning Factory. We had heard that you can have a free tour every day at 11am of the factory and to be honest I wanted to learn a bit more about the industry. I’m not sure how happy I am with some of the products we have seen and wanted to find out if the sheep were bred just for their skin or if the skin was used after the animal had been killed for meat. We never found out. We had a look around the shop and the woman who worked there said it was pointless to have a tour on a Saturday because none of the machines were running. Why advertise it then? She could have still given us some more information about the process and the business, but she seemed far too interested in pilling up her sheep throws and not a lot else. We decided to leave, as did another couple. You may be reading this thinking, they’re not having a whole lot of luck in Napier. I don’t think we were, but it was only 11am or so and we had the best bits yet to come.

We drove to the Mission Estate Winery. Yay!! We had both heard of Mission Estate Wines before and were so impressed with the building and grounds on arrival. The Mission Estate is known as the birthplace of New Zealand wine. Some French settlers came to New Zealand and developed the estate back in the mid 19th Century. They have grown ever since now with some land in the Marlborough region on the South Island and also some land 3 hours south of Napier. We walked around the house and grounds and then came the best bit. The tasting! It was $5 each, around £2.70 and we received a tasting of 7 different wines (about 2cm of wine each time) and a Mission Estate wine glass. Brilliant deal! I was driving so was being a bit cautious. Simon ended up with some of my wine too. We learnt how the Shiraz grape is often called a Syrah (we both liked the 2013 reserve $50 a bottle Syrah) and reconfirmed our dislike of Chardonny. Yuck! It was really great fun tasting wine and being treated like a wine connoisseur. ‘So, what did you think of the 2014 estate Merlot?’ ‘Yes, it does have a smooth oaky finish, with a touch of plum on the tongue’ ‘Did you notice the hint of bladdy blah tannin?’ I think we will need to work on our jargon before we get to the Marlborough region. Haha

Yes my sunglasses are bent! I really need to by some more. 

I needed to not drink wine for a few hours so we decided to go for a look up Te Mata Peak which is a popular lookout over the twin cities of Napier and Hasting. It also gave pretty impressive views over Hawke’s Bay. We decided to drive up just to save some time.

Can you spot Maverick in the above photo?

We wanted to visit one more vineyard and decided on Elephant Hill. On our way there we stopped at a Honey shop and tested about 10 different varieties of honey. We both agreed that the Manuka Honey was our favourite. When we made it to Elephant Hill we both couldn’t believe how pretty the whole estate was, but their portions  given on the tasting were far smaller. We got one tasting between us and no free glass. However, we did prefer the wines to the ones at Mission Estate. We stopped to look at the seaside on the way back and with that our time in Hawke’s Bay had come to an end. The next day we were going to start the 4 hour drive to Wellington. A bit of a spoiler… we had some very interesting stops on the way!!

As we left Rotorua we decided to make one more stop to experience the geothermal activity which had amazed us so much. We had heard about a place called Kerosene Creek where the river is so warm it feels like your in a bath. We made it there after a bumpy 2km dive on a rough gravel track and were pleased to see it didn’t look that busy. We got changed into our swimmers and made our way down to the waters edge, the moment of testing the water temperature had arrived and to our surprise it was not luke warm but almost too hot just like a freshly run bath. We swam around, took some photo’s and enjoyed the hot waterfall for about an hour. It was only after leaving Kerosene Creek that we realised we smelled faintly of sulphur, but it was a small price to pay and was easily fixed with a hot shower and lots of shower gel later.

We carried on making our way down to the north point of Lake Taupo and stopped for some lunch at a scenic lookout overlooking the lake. This gave us our first glimpse of Mt Doom (Mt Ngauruhoe) and a snow capped peaks of Mount Tongariro and Mount Ruapehu. This made the view all the more breathtaking and was a perfect spot for lunch in the sunshine.

Having taken some pictures and finished our lunch we continued on our way and stopped off at Huka falls, a section of the Waikato river which empties out of Lake Taupo. At this particular spot the river is squeezed between two rock faces, funneling it into a powerful raging torrent of rapids and finally over Huka falls. A height of 9 meters may not sound that impressive but 220,000 cubic litres of water every second does sound impressive. Just to give you an idea thats enough to fill seven olympic sized swimming pools in 1 minute. After seeing the falls we took a stroll up river, at which point Simon thought it would be a good idea to go down the bank and into the river for a better photo. This is when he fell into the water, hilarious. Once, a now soaking wet, Simon had extracted himself from the river we carried on up the river and marvelled at how crystal clear the water was. You could see the bottom two meters down!

On our way once again we found our accommodation and then headed straight back out again to get a closer look at the lake. We found a nice spot of grass just above the small sandy beach and plonked ourselves down to read for a bit in the afternoon sun with an ice cream. We were going to go for a swim in the lake however, the water didn’t look the cleanest and was very cold so we decided a little paddle would suffice.

 

The next day we caught up on some personal admin and then headed to the other side of the holiday park to the Taupo DeBretts Thermal Spa where we spent the next three hours enjoying the various different mineral pools, Jacuzzi baths and Simon’s favourite the hydro slides. The water park was made up of different temperature mineral pools the hottests being 40 degree C the lowest being at 28 degree C we elected not to stay in the 40 degree pool for very long it was just too hot. For the most part we had all three water slides to ourselves until later on when a Korean tour group of about 50 turned up and took over the place. At this point we decide to leave. We had a very relaxing afternoon and the best bit of it was that we got the tickets through Bookme.co.nz which made the entry very cheap.

After our very relaxing afternoon we headed back down to Lake Taupo to have a walk and see if we fancied any of the restaurants for dinner. We haven’t been eating out often, choosing to cook in the camper or in the holiday park kitchens instead, but when we really like a place we like to have a meal there. We found a place called The Lakehouse, which had a perfect view over the lake and out to the Tongariro mountains. Also, they offered stone cooked meats, which my Mum and Dad had suggested we tried. I ordered a 300g steak. Yummy! It was the best steak I ever had! It comes out on a piping hot rock pretty much raw and you have to cut it up and cook it however you like it. Medium rare for me! It was like butter it just melted in your mouth. Simon had a really tasty burger as well and we were both very happy. After our meal we went for a walk along the river and lake, took some photos and just enjoyed the evening. Taupo is the first place that we felt we could have spent a little bit longer, but unfortunately we had more places to visit.

The next day we were heading out for some White Water Rafting. Again, we had found this experience on bookme.co.nz which offers activities at around a 30-50% discount. We would be rafting down the Tongariro River, which was a grade 3. Having never rafted before, we decided to not go for a higher grade, but in hindsight I know I could have managed it, feeling like this was a little tame at times. Our guide told us about a place south of Christchurch which he would recommend if we would like to go again. We will keep our eyes out for some more good deals! The whole experience was great fun. We got dressed up in an impressive number of layers (it was raining) and had our safety briefing.

Unfortunately, this is when we found out that the Tongariro Alpine Crossing that we had planned for the next day was going to be cancelled due to the weather. Boo!!! It was one of the top activities I wanted to complete on the North Island so I was pretty gutted. Simon I think was a little relieved that he wouldn’t have to be walking 19.4km on his Saturday morning. The worst part of it was that it was also cancelled for the day after that which meant we definitely wouldn’t be able to do it as we had a deadline to catch the ferry. We decided that after rafting we would need to formulate a new plan for the next few days, but were pretty annoyed that we wouldn’t be getting up close and personal with Mount Doom.

We headed off for 2 hours on the water of bumpy and wet fun! We learnt quickly and the guide said that Simon and I were naturals, easily being able to manage the higher graded rapids. No-one in our group fell in luckily, but it was funny to watch the other raft get stuck a few times. Our guides told us a lot about the river on the way down and we got to see one of New Zealands rarest birds, the blue duck. There are only 2500 left in the wild and we saw a group of 4 whilst on the river. We stopped at one point for a cliff jump, which Simon and I both did. The water was BALTIC at around 8 degrees C. We had a really brilliant time and would love to have another go on the South Island so watch out for that.

It was time to reassess! We had originally planned to stay in Turangi the night before the Tongariro crossing, then stay midpoint on the way to Wellington somewhere. The weather was awful and our disappointment in now not even being able to see the volcanoes meant we wanted to leave the area. Where though? We spoke to our rafting guide and he recommended either heading West to New Plymouth or East to Napier. Napier won for 2 reasons. 1) It was the only place on the map that had sun forecasted for the next day 2) It was a little over 2 hours away whereas New Plymouth was about 4. I do feel a little bad that I didn’t go and visit the Plymouth of New Zealand, but that will have to be saved for when we come back to do the Tongariro crossing. We left for Napier a little unsure what to expect… More to follow…

On our way to Rotorua we stopped half way at Arapuni Suspension Bridge. It was a little bit of a nightmare finding the car parking for the walk to the bridge. However, once we were parked, the bridge was very impressive. The bridge was built to give access to the workers from the nearby town to the Arapuni Power station during its construction and crosses the Waikato River. The views were stunning and once we reached the other side we realised we should have been walking a metre apart from each other as we crossed. Whoops.

We carried on driving to Rotorua and stayed at Rotorua Family Holiday Park. We had seen a deal on a really helpful app called ‘Campmate’ that gave us the site cheaper and with internet included, the guy was nice enough to give us that deal for 2 nights and also gave us so much information on free activities to do around Rotorua and Taupo. Super helpful.

Our first stop in Rotorua was Kuirau geothermal park. We had come to Rotorua to see the smelly eggy (because of the sulphur) geothermal activity so we wanted to see it as soon as possible. A few thoughts early on. 1) The smell of sulphur wasn’t as bad as I expected 2) The geothermal activity was way cooler and more frequent that we thought it would be. Kuirau Park is free to walk around and is full of smoking holes in the ground, lakes and mud pools. There is some pretty impressive steam and heat being kicked out at some of them. We were told that there are hot foot pools in the park where you could soak your feet however, the first one was pretty cold and the second one was nothing special. We spent about an hour here walking around and enjoying the coolness/hotness.

It had been a lovely blue sky day so we decided to go for another of the free activities we had been told about even though it was already getting late. We drove through town to go and see the blue and green lakes (Lake Tikitapu and Lake Rotokakahi). Apparently they are best seen on good weather days as their colours are more prominent. By the time we arrived at the carpark, that would give us access to both of the lakes, it was already about 5:30pm so we knew we would have to rush. We didn’t see a single other person during our 2 hours walking around the area. It was very peaceful at the lakes but blue lake wasn’t massively blue and green lake was also blue. We were disappointed with the colours to be honest. Also, we walked down to ‘green’ lake to get some photos, but we couldn’t actually see the lake through all the shrubbery. Turns out the nearest picnic spot on that lake was a 11km walk. As we were heading back to Maverick the dusk turned into darkness. At this point we were walking through dense tall trees so were pretty grateful to get back to the car. I will admit that we picked up a dominos pizza, as it was too late to cook. BUT! over here you can get a large pizza for around $6 (£3.50). Australia had the same deals. I just don’t see why we can’t have good deals like that! It is officially the only thing that is cheaper here.

Blue lake:

Green lake (also blue):

The next morning we had a lie in. We had been gifted 2Gb of wifi so needed to write some blogs, upload some photos and catch up with banking. Boring really! Simon desperately needed a haircut. He had developed the name ‘Elvis’ due to the long side burns and mop on his head. We went into town so he could attend to his fro. Lets say he is looking far more groomed now, less like Elvis, but a bit more like Olly Murs.

We were told about a local Maori village on the lakeside in Rotorua so decided to head down there to see what it was all about. Ohinemutu has a Anglican Church, Tama-te-kapua meeting house, a local handcrafts shop and quite a lot of geothermal activity going on. We spent a good 30 minutes wandering around here admiring the buildings. Definitely a magical little spot we wouldn’t have known about if it wasn’t for the guy at the holiday park.

From here we walked along the lakeside, enjoying the colours of the water. Sometimes milky due to the sulphur in the water and other times crystal clear with turquoise areas. This walk made for some very pretty photos as you will see!

We walked back through Government Gardens and headed to our last of the 3 Middle Earth Trilogy tours. We were heading to Te Puia for a day and night experience (Te Ra and Te Po). This involved a guided tour around the site which was the land of the Te Arawa tribe followed by a Maori welcome ceremony, cultural show and a hangai dinner. On our tour we saw geysers, mud pools, attempted to see a brown kiwi,  walked through the Maori Arts and Crafts institute and saw the beautiful architecture of the Te Puia Pa (fortified village). The whole of our tour was conducted by a descendent of the Te Arawa tribe who still lived in the Maori village that backs onto the Te Puia site. We learnt about traditional customs, learnt how the famous New Zealand silver fern is used as not only an offering of peace, but also to reflect light from the moon to guide the way at night, and so many other interesting things. I won’t go on about them all here as I know so many of you will want to experience this for yourselves in the future. A highlight was seeing the Pohutu geyser (the largest in the Southern Hemisphere). This geyser erupts once an hour or so, but will erupt for about 20 minutes at a time. This just completely blew my mind. I couldn’t even begin to imagine how much pressure there was built up under the earth for a geyser to erupt so powerfully for so long. Super impressive.

It was really interesting to learn about how the European settling caused an influx of Western diseases to kill a large percentage of the Maori people. Skills are passed down through generations such as: navigation, weaving, dancing, singing, canoe building, woodwork etc. and when so many Maori people died these skills started to become lost. At Te Puia they have set up an institute of Maori Arts and Crafts which is designed to keep these important cultural skills alive. We had the chance to look at the woodcarving centre (where only men can learn) and also in the weaving centre. The pieces of art we saw were unbelievable. So beautiful.

It was time for the evening entertainment which began with a traditional welcoming ceremony (Powhiri). This ceremony would allow us to enter the Marae and is designed to challenge the guests intentions, usually presenting a warrior to come forward and present a silver fern as a peace offering. We were allowed in and were welcomed by a speech, singing and our leader (a German guy) pressed noses with the chief (hongi). After this we enjoyed so many different Maori cultural performances including the Haka, singing and dancing and Poi (swinging of tied weights). It was amazing to see this side to the Maori culture and we both had a brilliant time. Our evening ended with a traditional Hangi dinner, which is where the dinner is cooked underground using hot rocks. We had lamb, chicken, pork, roast vegetables and so many other delicious foods. It was so tasty I think we both had 3 plates. We walked down to the Pohutu geyser for another look and hopefully to see the geyser actually erupting and were really fortunate as she put on an amazing show. We had a hot chocolate and that was the end of the night. It all went so fast. I would definitely recommend doing a cultural experience if you come to New Zealand. The people here are so friendly and they are so proud of their history and origins. We mainly took videos in the evening so sorry for the lack of photos.

We went back to our campsite very satisfied with our time in Rotorua. It’s the first place in New Zealand that I said I would live, despite the smell. Simon doesn’t agree and quite a few people since have told us its a lie that you ever get used to the smell. You don’t apparently. I just loved the area and how full of cool science it was. I wished we’d spent a little more time here. We had one more very eggy smelly geothermal experience the next morning which I will save for the next blog.

 

To say we have been looking forward to this trip for a long time would be an understatement. We both couldn’t wait to go to Hobbiton and see the Shire. We had decided to book our Hobbiton trip as part of the Middle Earth Trilogy package, which included: Hobbiton, Waitomo and Raikari Caves and Te Pui (cultural experience). We booked these tours so that we were doing one each day for three days. We added up the savings and we would save a large amount by doing them through a package deal rather than individually so were pretty happy.

We left our accommodation in Coromandel early as we had a 2 hour drive to the Matamata area where the Hobbiton set is based. As we approached the area, with its sweeping hills and lush green countryside, we new we were close. You honestly felt like you were in the middle of the Shire before you even made it to the set. We parked up and checked in as a bus would be taking us the final distance into the set. We learnt that Peter Jackson (the director of the LoTR and the Hobbit trilogies) had flown over the area in a Helicopter searching for the perfect sight for Hobbiton and as soon as he saw this sight, he knew that this was it. The land belonged, and still does, to the Alexander family. The land had been used as farm land and as we drove towards the set we enjoyed seeing all of the sheep roaming around on the beautiful hillsides.

The set was built temporarily for the LoTR trilogy, removed after filming finished and then rebuilt permanently for the Hobbit trilogy. It has been accessible to tour since then. We watched a video on the bus as we pulled up to the site and you could tell that everyone on the bus was getting pretty excited.

I won’t go into too much detail about all of the little filming secrets they told us about, or what every single hobbit hole looked like, as I don’t want to ruin it for anyone who will visit in the future. However, I will tell you that there are 43 hobbit holes, 4 more than were built for the LoTR trilogy as Peter Jackson wanted to be able to get more sweeping panoramic shots during the filming of the Hobbit. We got to walk around most of them, which are unfortunately only facades. All of the internal shots were filmed in studios either down in Wellington or elsewhere in the world. Some of the highlights were seeing Bag End, Sam’s house, the Party tree and the Green Dragon pub. I’ll put a selection of photos below for you to see.

The weather was glorious, the air of excitement was all around us and it was a really lovely tour. We ended the tour with a drink in the Green Dragon. We both had tasty cider and couldn’t believe that our 2 hours were over already. The one downside to the tour was that is was VERY busy. When you wanted to get photos back to Hobbiton there were queues of people in the shots and you were constantly getting moved along to keep up with your tour group. As it is designed for Hobbits, the paths are narrow and taking photos was pretty difficult. But, we did have an AMAZING time.

We arrived back at the carpark wanting to go around again, just because 2 hours wasn’t enough time. We ate some sandwiches in Maverick and then moved on towards a town called Cambridge. The wifi situation has been pretty rubbish so far. Never having good enough wifi to upload photos, write blogs or do research, so we went to a local Mcdonalds and had a drink to use their wifi. Their wifi was BAD!! We hardly got anything done. The rest of the day was a work day. Laundry needed doing and food shopping needed buying, but we ended the day by watching the Fellowship of the Ring. I mean, what else would we have watched that night? 🙂

We left our random accommodation in Orere Point in the early morning to head over to Coromandel Peninsula. The two activities we were heading over to do are both quite touristy, but we’ve been looking forward to them both since seeing all the pictures.

We had about a 2 hour drive on some of the windiest rounds I’ve ever driven on before we got to our campsite for the night. We weren’t going to risk not having checked in again so we headed straight to our campsite, checked in and then headed off to Cathedral Cove.

If you’ve ever seen pictures of the Coromandel region, I would guess that you’ve seen pictures of Cathedral Cove. You can only reach the cove by walking (around 40 minutes), kayaking or by boat. We decided we didn’t want to get the passenger ferry as most of the fun of getting somewhere beautiful like this is the effort it takes to get there. There were so breathtaking views along the walk and some even better views once we made it to the cove.

As we walked back up towards the car we stopped at Stingray Bay. It would appear that most people skip over this beautiful cove and head straight to Cathedral Cove, so we had it to ourselves for most of the time we were there.

We got back in Maverick and headed into Hahei to get some food and to have a look at the beach there. We enjoyed a takeaway pizza, some icecreams and another play on a tree swing.

(look how happy I am).

It was about time to head over to Hot Water Beach. Hot Water Beach is a naturally geothermal beach where you can utilise the hot water that comes up from the ground to build your own hot tub. We had heard that it was a good idea to get to the beach about 2 hours before low tide as the thermal water comes up around 2 hours before and after low tide. We hired a spade, got into our swimmers and headed down to the beach. Despite being 2 hours early, the beach was PACKED!! We couldn’t believe it. We spotted another British couple and decided to join forces with them in digging our hole. The boys took the lead and dug right next to this super impressive pool that a local had made. However, our pool wasn’t getting a lot of hot water coming up into it, so it was slightly cooler than lukewarm. Simon decided we needed to move so we moved closer to the middle of the thermal activity where it was actually TOO hot. Simon was jumping around on the sand trying to find a spot. We decided we could create a hot water channel down to the cooler pool and eventually it would be a perfect temperature. It was. We sat in the pool for about an hour and a half enjoying the scenery and chatting to the British couple, then an American couple and then some guys from Switzerland. We were super jealous as some of the other pools had beers and we really started to crave a beer. Right towards the end of our time we both ran into the sea for a cold plunge and then back to our hot pool. The pool was about the temperature of a bath just after you’ve run it. Perfect!! For me, a bath lover, it was a great way to end a lovely day.

We went back to our campsite, where the other British couple were staying too, had a couple of rum and cokes and chatted away. A really lovely evening and day!!!

 

 

 

We got up relatively early the next day and got ready. We were being picked up at 7:30am by the Dune Rider, a 4WD coach that was going to take us up to Cape Reinga and along 90 mile beach with a lot of other interesting stops along the way.

Our first stop was at Mangonui where we were able to pick up a coffee. I desperately needed a coffee as I had taken a motion sickness tablet for the bus and couldn’t stop falling asleep. Unfortunately, I’ve now run out of my trusty British tablets so have had to try some others, which are making me pretty drowsy. Mangonui is a really pretty town right on the coast. We would be returning here later for fish and chips.

We kept traveling North and ended up at an old Gumdiggers park. Kauri trees are some of the largest trees in the world, growing up to 50m tall, with trunk girths of up to 16m and living for over 2000 years. Kauri gum is the fossilised resin or sap of the Kauri tree. At the Gumdiggers park we saw the remains of the work that used to happen here (shelters, tools and the holes where they have excavated the Kauri gum). We also saw a huge and very ancient Kauri tree which was believed to have been blown over in bad weather and then preserved in a swamp.

We got back in the coach and headed up to our lunch stop. We had a pretty basic lunch at a cafe on the way (meat and rice salad) and then headed up to Cape Reinga. At Cape Reinga 2 oceans collide, the Tasman Sea and the Pacific Ocean. It was so cool to see the different currents and waves hitting each other creating all of these beautiful patterns on the surface of the water. At the northernmost tip of the cape there is a pohutukawa tree, believed to be around 800 years old. Cape Reinga is a very sacred place to the Maori people as they believe that the spirits of their deceased leap from this tree into the ocean to return to their ancestral homeland of Hawaiki. As we approached the Cape, our bus driver started to chant in Maori. He told us that he had lost a few family members recently and this place is the most appropriate to say goodbye. Cape Reinga isn’t quite the northern most point of New Zealand, but North Cape (which is) is inaccessible as it’s a scientific reserve, so it’s as far North as you can go. We walked around the lighthouse and went up to a vantage point to get some good views back across the Cape. The whole area had a really magical and sacred feel to it. Beautiful.

We got back in the bus and started our journey back south. Our first stop was to Te Paki Sand Dunes where we were going to spend some time sandboarding. Neither of us had sandboarded before so we were pretty excited to have a good. I couldn’t believe how steep the dune was that we were going to be riding down, but we both had a good and really enjoyed it. Simon even moved up to the higher dune, but I didn’t want to as you would have to go through water at the end and I was already pretty cold. I stuck with my other dune. We only got videos of this, but I will try and put some videos onto facebook soon.

After leaving the Te Paki Sand Dunes we drove onto 90 mile beach. 90 mile beach was named by Captain James Cook (this name keeps cropping up doesn’t it) on his circumnavigation of New Zealand in 1769. He had a pretty useless device for measuring and measured the distance of the beach in nautical miles, coming to the number 90. It has been since measured at 55 miles, so quite far off the original distance, but the name has stuck. We drove along the beach for about an hour, only getting stuck by the tide once. The driver did some clever timing and we got through no problem. The whole area is really just so beautiful and it reminded us of our time on K’Gari in Australia, which is never going to be a bad memory.

We had to drop off some people at a shop that specialised in Kauri products. We were told to go straight to the middle of the store as there is a very impressive staircase carved our of one piece of Kauri wood. This piece being 50 tonnes in since. The staircase was stunning and it felt like an honour to be able to walk up the stairs. The original piece that was discovered was actually 110 tonnes, but that was used to make smaller products.

Our last stop of the day was fish and chips in Mangonui. We both enjoyed the Hoki and chips as here in New Zealand they have so many quotas and laws in place to product their marine life that I didn’t feel bad at all eating it and it was super tasty!! Our whole day had been amazing and completely worth what we had paid for the whole trip. To celebrate such a good day, we drove into town, bought some icecreams from the supermarket and sat in the car over looking Paihia and the Bay of Islands.

The next day we were starting the long drive back down Northlands, passed Auckland and over to Coromandel where we would be spending 24 hours. Unfortunately, we stopped too many times to look at things and explore that we didn’t travel as far as we wanted to during the day. We’ve learnt that most holiday parks, where we’ve been parking the car, need you to check in by 8pm and by 7pm we were hardly past Auckland. We quickly readjusted our plan as we had nothing booked and went and stayed in Orere for a night.

Here are some of the spots we enjoyed on our drive through Northlands:

Paihia beachfront

Kawakawa to look at the railway and the famous toilets

Whangarei falls

A.H Reed Kauri Park

Langs Beach

Off to Coromandel next to enjoy Cathedral Cove and Hot Water Beach. Wooo!!!

On the day we collected Maverick, our spaceship, it was very grey, cold and wet. Anyone who knows me knows I’m not the best when it comes to camping. I get cold in Egypt, so how will I ever manage living out of a car? Anyway, despite my little niggly worries, we were both excited. We have loved the times when we’ve had our own transportation and now we were going to have a car for 6 weeks!!!! YAY!!

The company paid for us to get a taxi to collect Maverick (he will be referred to his name from now on), we had a briefing on how everything worked and then we were free to go. So, what is a spaceship? A spaceship is a type of camper car. So what is a camper car? It is a long car that has been modified in the back so that you have a double mattress, fridge, camping stoves and storage compartments. We went crazy and also rented a power cable so we could charge our electrical items at powered campsites and a summer pack (chairs, table, cooler box and solar shower). Unfortunately they had run out of tables so we got refunded the cost of the table and will be buying our own as soon as possible. All in all, we were pretty impressed with the size of Maverick when we collected him and so far he’s been a very smooth and reliable ride!

As we left Auckland we decided to go up to Mount Eden to get some views back to Auckland. Auckland is a city surrounded by extinct volcanoes and Mount Eden is one of them. However, when we arrived at the carpark, the weather turned even worse for us. The spectacular views we were promised didn’t really happen and we were soaking wet by the time we made it back to the car. My worst camping fears were coming true… everything being damp and gross. We had planned to go to a local beach called Piha for lunch, but decided the weather was too bad so we started our journey up towards Paihia in the North. We would be using Paihia as a base for the next 3 days so that we could explore the Bay of Islands and Cape Regina.

Not long after we left Auckland we saw a Pac n’ Save. I’d heard that these were the Aldi’s of New Zealand so we went shopping and stocked the camper with nearly a weeks worth of food!! Bargain! When putting all of the food back into the camper somehow I dropped the keys down the side of the fridge, an area not easily accessible. Simon had to go and by a screwdriver so we could get the keys back and get on the road again. Whoops! Thank you Simon. You were a hero!!!

We stopped in the next town, which was called Orewa and had some lunch. We whipped out the camping stove, made a cuppa and enjoyed our sandwiches whilst looking out over the beach. Maybe this camping thing won’t be so bad? I think the best of the weather was coming to an end now and we decided to just plow on with our 250km. The maximum speed limit in New Zealand is 100km so it’s not too fast to travel anywhere really, but we made it to our campsite by about 6.30pm. The whole drive was beautiful, at times reminding us of Norway and at other times reminding us of Wales and Scotland. The North Island is the less ‘pretty’ island apparently. Jeez, we will definitely be spoilt by the end.

Once we got to our campsite we had the fun of trying to put up an awning and turning the back area into a bedroom. We managed quite successfully and used the camp kitchen to make some dinner. 4 guys who were working over here from India gave us some left over sausages that they had BBQ’d and invited us to join them for a chat. They were very lovely people and told us that their culture was to share everything. They kept offering lamb steaks, beer and rum. We offered them some coca cola and cookies. I have to admit, at first I was skeptical as it’s not common to do that in British culture, but they genuinely were being nice and we had a lovely chat with them about New Zealand, India and Britain. We headed off to bed as we had quite an early start for our first tour of NZ the next day.

We woke up nice and early to head to the for the wharf for our ferry tour. We were going to be visiting the Bay of Islands and the Hole in the Rock, with the hope that we may see some marine mammals on the way. We had heard that the swells yesterday were up to 1.5m and the guests didn’t have a fun trip, not even making it to see the Hole in the Rock. I took some seasickness tablets and hoped! Before the boat departed we had a little bit of time to walk around Paihia, which is a very pretty little coastal town. I learnt that the name comes from someone saying the town was ‘Fine here’. Maori for fine is Pai, so the town is now Paihia (pronounced Pai here).

Once on the boat we got chatting to a couple of groups of Brits, one who has lived in NZ for 40 years and worked for a while with the NZ Royal Navy and another guy who also served in the Royal Navy. Lets just say there was a lot of Navy chat for a while. We picked up some more people from Russell (more on that place later) and then set off through the islands. The Bay of Islands is a subtropical micro-region made up of 144 islands. The islands are absolutely stunning. Our skipper provided interesting commentary throughout the trip telling us that only 4 of the islands were inhabited, 2 of those are fully privately owned and you can only camp on one of the islands.

We were very lucky because quite early on we saw a pod of Bottlenose dolphins following our boat and jumping out of the water showing off. We saw another pod later on, but they were travelling at a much quicker speed when we were out in open ocean on our way to the Hole in the Rock. Dolphins and other marine mammals are usually spotted about 80% of the time on these trips, but are never guaranteed. It was breathtaking seeing them jump out of the water and playing around.

We kept heading through the beautiful islands and eventually made our way up to the Hole in the Rock. This island is the most pristine in all of the Bay of Islands with no sign of any introduced species. The 60 foot hole at sea level was created over centuries by wind and waves. Unfortunately we were unable to go through the hole in the rock due to the swells on the North side, but luckily we made it up there to see it. The waves were nothing like the day before, but the skipper kept saying it was going to get rough and windy, he kept going on about seaspray. Fortunately i think he was just over exaggerating because I didn’t get sick at all.

On the way back from the Hole in the Rock we stopped for lunch at the largest island in the bay, Urupukapuka at Otehei Bay. Lunch was soup, bread, a wrap and a brownie. Pretty tasty stuff and much needed after our exciting morning. We had a walk around the island after lunch and went up to the top of a hill for a panoramic view. The view was stunning. The water was crystal clear, beautiful sandy beaches and all of these interesting island formations. I was finding it hard to believe we were in New Zealand it looked so tropical.

We made sailed back to Russell and this time we got off there. As part of our tour you get a ferry passenger ferry ticket from Russell to Paihia, so we decided to spend and hour or so there looking around. Russell used to be known as the ‘hell hole’ of the Pacific. It was the first permanent European Settlement in New Zealand and because of its links to whaling, prostitution and a lack of law enforcement. It’s pretty nice now and I don’t think anyone would call it a hell hole anymore.

We walked along the front and then went and visited the oldest church in New Zealand – Christ Church. There was an interesting gravestone which belongs to the chief of the Maori people in Northlands at the time the treaty was signed with Britain. You could see gun shot holes and bullets in the side of the church from a siege. I’m not really sure what the siege was about though.

To end our time in Russell we went to a cafe and had a smoothie and a milkshake before taking the ferry back over to Paihia. We decided we didn’t want to go back to the campsite just yet, so went to see Hurura waterfalls just outside of Paihia. We have seen quite a lot of waterfalls recently and it always amazes me how each one is so different. This one was no different with the falls being pretty powerful initially and then all of a sudden calm in the river below.

We settled in for the night as we had an early start the next day on our second excursion whilst up in Northlands.

I’m going to leave this blog here because the wifi at this McDonalds is so bad and I’m getting a headache from moaning at it so much! I will aim to do the next day as soon as possible.

Our time in Australia had come to an end and it was time to head to New Zealand. We had been getting pretty excited in the last few weeks about New Zealand. Maybe because we would have a car, maybe because we were doing a lot of the same activities in Australia (coastal walks, lighthouses, botanical gardens etc.) or maybe because Australia was sapping money from us. From the blogs I’m sure you can see that we aren’t be extravagant. We aren’t eating out hardly at all. We definitely aren’t doing all the tours or activities we could be doing, so we were ready for a change.

We had booked into a motel near to Avalon airport for the night as we would have to get up at about 3am to drive to the airport, return our rental car and catch our flight. Everything was going as planned until we got to the check in desk. We walked up to the desk and I went to put my backpack on the conveyor belt for checked bags and the lady behind the counter said ‘Don’t bother’. Uh oh! She told us that the flight had been cancelled and that we had been sent an email notification about it. I didn’t have any Australian data anymore and I hadn’t had wifi throughout the night so we didn’t know this. Actually, on later inspection anyway, the email wasn’t sent until about 10 minutes after we went to the check in desk. She told us that there were 6 seats left on a flight from the other Melbourne airport at 8.05am. We had quite a long layover in Sydney before our Auckland flight so thought that would work and they were going to drive us all over to the other airport at 6am.

We received $8 each of free food vouchers and had some coffees and muffins and waited patiently. By 6.30am we were getting a bit panicky so Simon went up to the desk to ask when we would be leaving (it’s about an hour drive). The bus pulled up shortly afterwards. We made it to Tullamarine airport at about 7.25am, had 2 bags to check and had to go through security. Uh oh again! We did a bit of running and made it to the gate with plenty of time as the flight was a little late. A flight has never been cancelled for either of us before so it was a little nerve racking, but Jetstar did sort us out and we did make our connection in Sydney for Auckland. The only thing that annoys me still about this whole experience was the reason they gave for the flight being cancelled. Now… I booked these flights about 8 months ago and even if someone was sick then you would have thought that would have been enough time to have backups in place.

There was a HUGE tailwind on both our flights, the first was meant to take 1h25 and only took 55 minutes and the second was meant to take 3h25 and only took 2h15. We were flying at 1000km/h most of the time. Super fast!

We landed in Auckland and used the sky bus service to take us into the city centre. We booked it online while we were waiting for our baggage and saved a bit of money compared to going to the desk once through security. New Zealand are super strict on what comes into their country and we had to tell them that our hiking boots had been in the Grampions National Park a few days before, but it wasn’t a problem and they let us through. Simon bought 2 bottles of Captain Morgans Spiced Rum in duty free to keep him going during our time in the Campercar. By about 5:30pm we were at our hostel and ready to go get some shopping! I have grown to enjoy looking around foreign supermarkets. Not because the food is different but because I like to look at the prices. New Zealand is pretty similar to Australia for many foods, but meat, fruit, veg, and cheese doesn’t seem to be as expensive, which is great. Also, in Australia something may have cost $10, in New Zealand it might also cost $10, but the exchange rate is far nearer to $2 to £1 than in Australia, so more value for money. YAY!! We went back to the hostel, ate and relaxed. We’d been up since 3am and even though it was only a 2 hour time difference we were feeling a little jet lagged.

The next day we woke up quite late and decided to go for a wander. Our hostel was very close to all of the piers so we headed out along the cost, along Queens Street to buy some warmer clothes and ended up having a late Sunday Roast in Danny Doolans, an Irish Pub. We hadn’t had a roast for about 2 months and I had been really craving it. This pub was offering a roast and a pint of cider for $20, which, when the pints are usually $10 over here, was a bargain. It was great too!! After this we decided to go and have a closer look at the sky tower. We hadn’t really planned to go up the sky tower, but decided that we would to get some good views and to actually ‘do’ something.

The sky tower is a relatively new building. It’s the tallest structure in the Southern Hemisphere and provides panoramic views across Auckland. We really enjoyed our time up the sky tower, ending up staying for nearly 3 hours to watch the sunset. We also managed to skype home a few people and enjoyed a coffee in the cafe. Have a look at some of the views we had during our time up the sky tower. After the sky tower it was pretty late so we headed back to the hostel to cook some food and watch some more Californication (it’s our new thing).

The next day we decided to take another free walking tour. These have become our go to activity in the cities that we visit and they really do help you get orientated and provide you with some history and insider info on the place. In hindsight we wished we would have been able to get up earlier and go the day before, but we had been too tired for that.

We met our walking tour guide, Louise, at Queens Wharf where most of the ferries leave to go out to the outer islands and harbour trips. You could tell that she loved living in Auckland and really wanted to share her knowledge with us all. The start of our tour was next to an old railway building and she told us about how James Cook navigated around NZ in 1769, one year before he arrived on the East Coast of Australia. Next to the railway building there was a relatively new building, which looked like a cloud. She asked us why that was and I told there that New Zealand is often called the Land of the Long White Cloud (thanks Mum). We started walking through the CBD which Louise told us was currently getting a bit of a renovation and a metro station. We had noticed the day before that there was a lot of building work going on. Apparently 50,000 people are moving into Auckland every year from around the World, making it the 4th most multicultural city. Auckland already is home to around 1/3 of the New Zealand population (around 1.5 million in Auckland) so there is a lot of work to be done to keep on top of the immigration.

We walked down a lane way which had a red light running down it and saw a cafe that had been converted from an old cinema. This lane way used to be the main spot for sailors when they visited or arrived after a long journey, to get their fill of entertainment. It was lovely to see that the cafe had kept a lot of the quirky features of the old cinema. The floor was still slanted and you could see where the old cinema screen used to be. Unfortunately, we didn’t have enough time to go back and have a coffee there, but it’s definitely one to visit in the future.

After the CBD we were shown sights such as Suffragette square, which is also getting a face lift. We didn’t realise that Kiwi women were the first women in the World to get the vote. This square is a memorial to that. We saw the National Art Gallery and learnt more about the arrival of the British settlers to New Zealand, and the signing of the treaty that allowed the British to govern NZ, but allowed the Maori people to maintain their culture and rights as well. We couldn’t believe how different this story was compared to the indigenous people of Australia who were treated so badly. The Maori culture in NZ is so prominent and you can see Maori people everywhere you look. In our whole 8 weeks in Australia we only saw a handful of aboriginal people out and about. Simon and I were talking about why this is and we think it may have something to do with the Maori people settling on NZ from the Pacific Islands. We think that maybe because they had officially ‘settled’ there before the British that was seen as a reason to give them rights. Whereas the Australian indigenous people had been living in Australia for tens of thousands of years, the British maybe didn’t see them as advanced? This is all speculation and it is an area we would like to learn more about during our time here. The picture below shows the maori people meeting the new governor.

We walked through Albert Park (named after Prince Albert) and through the University complex where we saw the old Government building. Simon was asked to go up to speakers corner and explain what they were. He did a good job! Louise told us about University fees here which are around £3000 a year, far more manageable than our £9000+ fees. She also told us that recently New Zealand had held a referendum (does anyone not want a referendum at the moment?). This referendum was to decide if their national flag was to be changed or not. Apparently 60% said to keep the flag the way it is, so that’s whats going to happen.

We stopped in Emily Place, which happened to be right next to our hostel, and saw the site of the first church in Auckland. When settlers arrived here the first thing that they wanted to see was a church so it was built on the highest point, allowing ships to see it when they arrived. Now, the area has a monument to the church, with a typo on it, and is full of Pohutukawa trees. These trees are really impressive and it is illegal to cut them down or even to trim back a branch. As you’ll see from the photo this means that they have overgrown the park and you can hardly walk around there anymore.

Our last stop was walking through the area of Britomart. This area is pretty high end and is built on the original edge of the city. This area has now been reclaimed and the water level is further away than previously, but they have a fountain to show where the boundary used to be. We walked through the Britomart train station and then headed back to Queens Wharf to end our tour. Auckland isn’t a city that is full of huge amounts of history or massively impressive buildings, but we learnt a lot about its history and heard lots of interesting stories.

The rest of the afternoon we camped out in McDonalds to use their free wifi and book lots of tours for our time in the North Island. I still needed to buy leggings so we went to do that and then we sat on the pier and read our books for a while, enjoying the views back over to Devonport and the Harbour Bridge.

We had really enjoyed our time in Auckland. It had been an excellent start to our time in New Zealand and showed us what everyone had told us before. The people here are SOOOO friendly. You really can see why so many people are moving into the area and to New Zealand in general. The next morning we picked up our Campercar (called Maverick) and started our 6 week road trip around the North and South Islands. More stories to follow.