Simon and Becky's travels

After the excitement of our heli hike we drove along the West Coast down to Haast and the Haast pass. We had originally planned to stay a night in Haast to break up the journey, but lost that day for the rearrangement of the heli hike. On our way to Haast we made a stop at Knights Point Lookout, which showed us views over the Tasman Sea.

After the lookout we carried on driving through Haast Pass, stopping often to taken pictures of the breathtaking scenery. The views we were seeing now were the typical views you expect of New Zealand and we were not disappointed. We made 2 other stops on the way. The first was at Thunder Creek Falls, which was such an impressive waterfall and the second was at the Blue Pools. I definitely recommend both of these if you are passing through that way.

Eventually, we saw Lake Wanaka, but Wanaka town is actually located on the Southern side of the lake, so we still had a way to go. We followed along Lake Wanaka for a while and then the road took us alongside Lake Huwea. Both beautiful. We made it to Wanaka quite late and we decided to just settle in and have some dinner before bed.

The next morning we headed into town to do some food shopping. This supermarket is the most expensive New World in New Zealand because of the distances the food has to travel to make it to this store. Great! We actually didn’t notice that much of a difference when buying our shop though. Phew. The afternoon was dedicated to exploring. We walked a short distance up the road to Rippon Winery, had a wine tasting, enjoyed the scenery and then drank half a bottle of wine (Osteiner – one of 2 places in the World that grow this grape) and ate a cheese board in the sun. Perfect!!

We then walked along Lake Wanaka back into town past the famous ‘Wanaka Tree’. This lone tree was made famous by a National Geographic Photography Competition a few years back and is now the most instragrammed and hash tagged tree in the world (apparently). I couldn’t help but feel sorry for the tree, but it was interesting to see.

The rest of the afternoon we walked around the town, enjoyed the views of the lake and just got a feel for Wanaka. A lot of people have told us that they prefer Wanaka to Queenstown, saying Wanaka is more like Queenstown used to be. We were really enjoying our time there, but there still isn’t a huge amount in the town and I couldn’t imagine living there as the distances between places is so great.

The next day we had originally planned to walk up to the summit of Roy’s Peak. A lot of people told us it was one of their favourite views during their time in New Zealand, but because the weather was a bit iffy we decided to pass this time and save it till our next trip (there will definitely be a next trip). Instead we visited a Lavender Farm which Simon thought would be super lame, but actually agreed that he’d been wrong about. The views from the farm were amazing and we enjoyed a pot of tea and some lavender chocolates before deciding what to do with the rest of our day. They also had some lawn games which we enjoyed being competitive over. I won connect 4, Simon won boules.

The weather was no where near as bad that afternoon as the morning had been and we decided to hire some mountain bikes for 2 hours and ride around the Eastern side of the lake to the mouth of the river. The views were simply stunning so we took loads of photos, had a ride on the tree swing and just enjoyed the ride. A highly recommend renting a bike in Wanaka and now we are in Queenstown I would also recommend it for here, even though we don’t have the time.

That afternoon we had to drive the car to charge the fridge battery, which has become a bit of an annoyance for us when we have been parked up in one city or town for a while. Oh well.. we can’t complain about the views while we drive. They’re just to die for!

The next day we were going to be doing about 4.5 hours of driving down to Te Anau, but before we left we had a chance to have lunch with the Danish couple we met in Franz Josef. The restaurant was amazing, Simon said his burger was brilliant (he is a burger connoisseur) and I had a fry up (getting them in before we go to Asia). We had a lovely few hours chatting with them and was sad to say goodbye. Hopefully we’ll see them again in the future!

Most people stay in Franz Josef for around 1 or 2 days. We arrived in Franz Josef having booked in for 3 nights at our holiday park. We knew this was a little bit longer than we should be staying, but our helihike was booked for the day after our 3rd night and we figured we could find things to do. Our first feel of Franz Josef was that it had a typical alpine resort air about it. We knew we were going to enjoy it!

Our holiday park was set in rainforest and had a lot of accommodation, not just campsites, so it was very busy from our arrival. It had a restaurant and bar attached to it, which is very rare and the facilities were great. As I mentioned in my previous blog, the night of our arrival we met a Danish couple and their son, had some drinks and ate dinner with them on our communal picnic bench. We had a lovely evening and have spent a lot of time with them since which we’ve enjoyed.

The next day we walked up to the terminal of Franz Josef Glacier. It was about a 20 minute drive out of town to the glacier and then it was a 1 and a half hour return walk up to the terminal. Walking along the path was easy and along the way we saw beautiful waterfalls and many different view points of the glacier. It was so impressive seeing the glacier appear from within the valley as we walked closer. We were very lucky with the weather and got some amazing views of the glacier. Franz Josef Glacier has been retreating since 2008 and having shown my Mum some photos that we took of the glacier she said it was very obvious how much it has shrunk since their last visit. Another sign of global warming unfortunately.

We walked back to the car and drove into town. On bookme we had managed to find a deal to go to the Kiwi centre in Franz Josef to have a backstage tour of their facilities. The centre has a very successful program that is supporting the Rowi kiwi population. To call it a breeding program would be incorrect. The team at the kiwi centre, along with the support of the Department of Conservation, will collect the kiwi eggs from the burrows a few weeks after they have been laid. These eggs are then taken to the centre and incubated and the chicks looked after for around 3 months. These chicks are then taken to predator free habitats around New Zealand for the next year or so until they are large enough to defend themselves. So, what are they defending themselves against? Kiwi’s number one predator is the stoat, an animal introduced to New Zealand to originally control the rabbit population. Guess what? The stoat did not control the rabbit population and they also have been decimating the kiwi population by eating their chicks when they are too young to product themselves. The Rowi kiwi population got so low that they created this program to support them and it is working VERY well.

While we were at the centre we were told about the role of this program, the biology of the kiwi and about the different species that are found. It was very informative and we were glad we went. During our behind the scenes tour we saw 2 kiwi chicks, 25 and 27 days old. They were so unbelievably cute! They would be heading off to their predator free environments soon ready to begin the process of getting large enough to go back into the wild, at around 1 year old. After we had finished the tour we went around the centre which is pretty small, but very well presented. They have 3 Rowi kiwis in their nocturnal house and we spent a good 20 minutes watching them sniff out food in the leaf litter. We couldn’t take any photos of them, but were so happy we got to observe them. We have asked a lot of people we have met if they have seen any in the wild and we haven’t met anyone yet who has. Pretty elusive animals! The centre also has a lot of information about glaciers and the local environment which we enjoyed reading.

The weather started to change so for the rest of the afternoon we sat in a cafe, had an unbelievably tasty burger and watched movies.

The next day, the weather was awful!!! We were getting a bit worried about our heli hike, but the weather was meant to get better the next day. We had a very lazy morning and then decided to go check in with out heli hike company and see what was going on. They said that all of the tours for that day had been cancelled, but tomorrow was looking better. Fingers crossed. As part of our heli hike we were entitled to entrance to the Glacier Hot Pools, which is 3 hot pools maintained at 36, 38 and 40 degrees C. We spent a good 2 hours in here discussing everything and anything. A few business ideas came to us whilst in the pools, so who knows whether these may come to fruition one day.

Feeling lovely and relaxed we drove down to Fox Glacier to walk up to the terminal. Most people will visit Franz Josef and then Fox separately, but because we had such a long time in Franz Josef we were doing it all based from Franz. The weather had cleared a bit and we headed off on our walk. It’s meant to be a 1 hour return walk, but when we got there we saw a sign saying they were doing maintenance work on the path and we would only be able to get 1km away from the terminal. Not great! We felt bad for Fox Glacier. Hardly anyone was there, it looked in a far worse condition (it has been retreating at an even greater rate than Franz Josef and for far longer) and no one could even see it properly because of the maintenance work. The valley up to Fox Glacier was really impressive though and we were still glad we went and saw it.

The next day was the day of our heli hike. The weather had cleared and was looking pretty good. We didn’t have to check in until 11:25 so we headed back down towards Fox Glacier to take advantage of the good weather and complete the circuit walk of Lake Matheson. Lake Matheson is an ale coloured lake which on a calm day can produce perfect mirror images of Mount Tasman and Mount Cook. There was a little bit of wind, but we got some amazing shots and the views were just beautiful. The whole area was very surreal, it didn’t quite seem real to be seeing such beautiful scenery. While we were there we were able to have a skype conversation with some of the Dowells, Pickerings, Overetts and Roddis’ which was lovely. Thanks for ringing us guys!

Filled with optimism we headed back to Franz Josef to check in for our heli hike. As we approached Franz Josef though we could tell that the weather was very different here. The valley was full of cloud and we were getting worried. We got to the heli hike centre and they told us that they hadn’t made a decision yet as to whether we would be going. After about an hour wait, we were told it was cancelled. Filled with disappointment, we decided to ask if they could rebook us in for the next day. As there was limited availability when we booked about 10 days before, we weren’t hopeful. Surprisingly, they were able to fit us in for the next day at 9:45am. SOOOOO HAPPY!!! All that had to happen now was for the weather to get better.

Disappointed, we decided we needed to find something to do for that afternoon and rechecked back in for our 4th night in Franz Josef. The weather was rubbish, we didn’t want to walk around in the rain, but we found another amazing bookme deal. Quad biking. We had ruled Quad biking out previously as it was quite expensive and we could do it in the UK, but this deal was way too good to pass up on. The deal allowed us to share 1 quad bike, paying 1 adult driver price and 1 adult passenger price, but swap as often as we wanted during the ride, and all at a 30% discount to advertised. The best bit was,we only had to wait 2 hours before we could go.

We checked in and were given endless safety briefings. We were getting worried that the whole trip was going to be dull, following behind each other in lines making it unable to have fun. Lets just say… we were wrong. The whole experience was so amazing! We had the best 2 hours zooming around on our quad bike over rocks, through mud and rainforest, going down steep drops and splashing through rivers. It was GREAT. We did see the glacier in the distance, but the weather was still pretty bad. Most people, like us, will go quad biking in Franz Josef if the weather is bad. I hope that other people don’t just see this as a wet weather activity as it was so brilliant. We wrote a trip advisor review immediately, which tells you how much we loved it. At one point Simon and I were laughing so hard that we nearly fell off the bike. We had fun trying to get each other muddy zooming through the puddles and I had fun telling Simon off for going to fast over rocks. Just great. Please remind us to show you the gopro footage when we get home!

Feeling a little bit better than we did after the heli hike was cancelled, we settled in for the night at the campsite. Simon met a British guy from Wiltshire while we were cooking and we went and had a couple of drinks with him in the bar and kept all of our body parts crossed (as did everyone on fb for us) for the next day.

The next day, there was sun. YES!!! The next question was, will it last? It did!!! We checked in for our heli hike, finally making it further than we did the day before. We filled in all of the health and safety paperwork, got weighed ready for our helicopter transfer, and got issued all of our hiking gear. Our guide for the heli hike was a girl from Yorkshire, so Simon and her had fun talking about Yorkshire-isms whilst we got ready and also on the glacier itself.

We started walking towards the helipad and it was only then that it hit me that we were actually going to be able to go up. I think deep down I had resigned myself to it not happening, but as they called me forward to sit in the FRONT of the 6 seater helicopter and the pilot started to play electro-trance music for us to listen to, I got pretty giddy with excitement. The scenic flight in itself was just so amazing and memorable. We were getting closer and closer to this breathtaking natural formation and then… we were landing on it! The whole ride was over in about 5 minutes, but I don’t think either of us will ever forget it.

As soon as we were on the glacier we were rushed away from the helicopter and asked to put our crampons on our boots. Luckily, we were both star pupils and were able to remember how to do it from our briefing. I think for the next 5 minutes while we waited for the other half of our hiking group, our jaws just hit the floor as we looked around at this maze of white and blue ice. The sun was shining and all we could see around us was ice and mountains. Anyone who is reading this blog and thinking of going to New Zealand. You have to do this!!! We are still buzzing from this experience days later.

For the next 3 hours we walked around the glacier, moving through tight crevices, crawling through caves, tasting glacial water and pinching ourselves. We learnt so much about the glacier during our tour and both enjoyed hearing the Maori formation story. I have linked the story here for anyone who would like to read it. http://www.franzjosefglacier.com/social/blog/the-story-of-ka-roimata-o-hinehukatere/

The 3 hours flew by and it was time to get our helicopter back down to reality. Simon had a great view of the valley and the glacier on the way back. The pilot did a very steep decent at one point, which felt a lot like a rollercoaster. We were both laughing and enjoying ourselves though. I can honestly say we were flying high and smiling for the rest of the day, we still are. The scenic flights of the glacier, which last about 30 minutes, cost around the same as the hike and to me it is no question. If you are lucky enough to be able to walk, go for it! We WILL be doing it again in the future. Thank you so much for anyone who contributed to our honeymoon fund at our wedding. We paid for this trip with some of that money. You have honestly allowed us to have some truly magical memories and we will be forever grateful.

After the heli hike it was time to leave Franz Josef. We feel like experts of the area now having completed most of the activities on offer. As we had lost a day with the delay of the heli hike, we were going to be driving 4 hours down to Haast and through to Wanaka. We still made 2 stops on this journey and I will talk about those on the next blog.

The morning after our Abel Tasman kayak trip we decided we needed to have a day off. We spent the morning lying on Kaiteriteri beach enjoying the sunshine and then drove a massive 9km to our overnight accommodation. What a difference 9km made though. The weather turned and as there isn’t a huge amount to do in Moteuka we ended up using the amazing wifi and backing up all our photos and writing lots of blogs. We even had the luxury of renting a movie on iTunes (the wifi had never been that good before). As I needed my daily walk we did head out to charge the battery on the car (for the fridge and usb chargers) and to go and see a shipwreck on their beach.

The next day we headed off to Nelson Lakes where we would be staying for 1 night. It wasn’t originally on our itinerary, but the date we could book our Franz Josef Heli Hike for was quite a few days later than we were hoping so we had a few days to fill. We’d heard good things about Nelson Lakes and particularly Lake Rotoiti that we decided to stay at.

As we got closer the scenery started to get more dramatic and the roads more windy. So far we hadn’t seen the typical New Zealand scenery on the South Island so were glad to start seeing some snow capped mountains. We popped into the local information centre, paid for our campsite which was a Department of Conservation run campsite (very basic) and picked up some information on a walk we had decided to do.

We decided we were going to complete the 9.4km Mount Robert Loop Track. I have been pretty disappointed that we were unable to walk the Tongariro Crossing on the North Island and felt like we needed to complete a good walk. 9.4km is nowhere near the 19.4km that the Tongariro Crossing is, but it’s a good start.

We drove along the lake, up a gravel path and parked our car ready to start our walk. The estimated time of the Mount Robert loop is 5 hours, but I thought we would be able to do it quicker. I predicted we’d be back at 4.40pm, which would make it 4 hours and Simon predicted 5:30pm… pretty pessimistic. The walk started well, providing us with stunning scenery, until about 20 minutes in. Most of the paths were gravel and very narrow. Somehow I managed to slip and fall over, grazing my leg pretty badly. I was very brave about it, we cleaned up my leg as best we could (not that well as everyone we passed stopped to check I was ok) and carried on.

The walk got pretty steep pretty quickly. I knew that the path would be steep in places, but I didn’t fully expect the incline we encountered. The loop takes you around Mount Robert, but not to the summit, however it does take you very very close. We clocked in over 1300m at our highest point on the walk. The views were breathtaking though and definitely worth the very long uphill battle. As Simon kept saying ‘The views just keep getting better and better’.

On the way down we had plenty more opportunities for photos and views over the lake and the surrounding mountains. We were very grateful we chose to walk around the way we did as the other direction (anticlockwise for anyone who may do it) was very zigzaggy and we felt that the upwards battle would have been harder on that side. Fortunately, we got to go down that way. So… what time did we make it back to the car?! 3:25pm. We managed to complete the walk in 2 hours 45 minutes. WOOOOO!!! Legends! I still can’t quite believe how quickly we walked it, especially as my leg was bleeding and stinging quite badly at times. Let’s just say, we were impressed with ourselves.

After our walk we headed down to the lake and fed the long finned eels that live there. Some of these eels are over 100 years old and I read in a brochure the other day that the females don’t reach maturity until they are 70 years old!!! Crazy! The lake was so pretty and we enjoyed the views for a few hours.

Now… I must tell you about an evil animal that we encountered during our time in Nelson Lakes. We had been warned about the nasty sandflies, but until you experience them, you won’t believe how persistent they are. Unfortunately, they like to live around water, so there were loads of them at Lake Rotoiti and they came in swarms. Cooking was interesting in the campsite’s doorless kitchen and when we opened Maverick’s doors, they flew in on mass. We were pretty happy we were only staying for one night.

The next morning, with a few sandfly bites, we headed towards Westport on the West Coast of the South Island. We were going to take the next couple of days heading from Nelson Lakes down towards Franz Josef in Glacier Country. The road to Westport passes alongside the Buller River for most of the time and goes through Buller Gorge, which provided some pretty amazing views. We looked at stopping at the Buller Gorge Swingbridge and Zipline, but it was pretty expensive and we’d had our fair share of free Swingbridges already.

We made it to Westport as the weather was turning. Luckily, we had washing to do, so we figured we’d let the weather pass before heading out to see the Southern Fur Seal colony that lives nearby. It was a short drive, maybe 15 minutes or so, to the carpark for the Tauranga Bay Fur Seal colony and then about a 20 minute walk along the pass. We felt like we could be in Cornwall walking along the North cliffs at times on this walk, it was very surreal.

The viewing platform for the Fur Seals is around 12m above the colony, so you can watch, but not be too intrusive. There were lots of boards providing information and we had a brilliant time just watching the seals fight, swim, cuddle and feed their young, as well as sleeping (lots of sleeping). We decided to walk along the path a bit further to enjoy the views, but unfortunately the weather changed on us and we started to get pretty wet. We headed back to the car, after another brief stop at the seals and dried off.

We felt like we should visit Westport itself so drove around the town. Waste of time. There is nothing there!!! I wish we had have moved on from Westport that night, but we were committed to our holiday park by then. There seems to be quite a bit you can do north of Westport, so maybe that would have provided more options for us?

The next morning we were driving from Westport to Hokitika. Our first stop of the day was Punika?? (Pancake Rocks). The weather was AWFUL!!!! The west coast is known for its high rainfall, but wow! I don’t think I’ve ever seen consistent downpours that last for 8 hours before. The loop walk at the Pancake rocks is 20 minutes so we attempted to coverup and head out for the walk. The rocks were amazing. It’s still not completely understood how they formed such perfect layers, which I found pretty interesting, but the weather put a little bit of a dampener on the whole experience.

We drove next to Greymouth. I’ve been told by a few people that Greymouth is only good for petrol. That is soooooo true! It’s a dump. Now, that may be being a little mean, but I didn’t enjoy the feel of it at all. We stopped in KFC (Simon’s request). The menu was weird and the food was awful. This sums up Greymouth for me. We had looked into visiting Shantytown to learn more about the gold mining that took place here, but reviews of this didn’t make it look like our kind of thing and also it’s mainly outdoors (we’re still in the middle of downpours).

Further south, our last stop was Hokitika. We checked into a campsite and decided that we were going to go into the ‘coolest’ town on the west coast (that’s what the leaflet says). They have a glassblowing studio, a greenstone carver, a gold shop and lots of other pretty cool little shops. We spent about an hour here watching the craftsmen and wandering around… still getting very wet. Westport to Hokitika is not a short drive, but because of the weather we had covered this ground pretty quickly. We went back to the campsite, watched a movie and then I got antsy again. We picked a place on the map and headed out, prepared to get wet one more time.

As we drove there we couldn’t believe that we should be able to see Mount Cook and the other Southern Alps on the horizon. We could see absolutely NOTHING! We were heading to a waterfall called Dorothy Falls. It had been raining pretty badly, so logic would say that a waterfall would be extra special after downpours. We weren’t disappointed. Dorothy Falls was violent and every bit worth getting wet for.

We also walked down to Lake Kaniere and had a play around on a bench. As you’ll see in the pictures, the bench was a little underwater. Hopefully this shows you how much rain there had been that day as the Lake was MASSIVE.

On the way back to the holiday park , we saw a swing set and had a play on the swings in the rain. Why not?!

On our last day travelling down the West Coast, we were pleasantly surprised to see the sun out. The day before we had driven past the turning for Arthurs Pass, which we had originally planned to visit. As the weather was good today, we headed back up the coast and drove to Arthurs Pass. Arthurs Pass is a little town in the Southern Alps and the road through that town provides a pass from the West Coast to Christchurch. It is also the route of the Transalpine train that runs from Christchurch to Greymouth and, in fact, we drove alongside the train line for most of the journey.

The views were great and we were so glad that we chose to drive to Arthurs Pass. Simon was so happy to see all the snowcapped mountains and when we got there we finally got to see the native alpine parrot, the Kea. These birds are so naughty and were picking at the rubber seals on all of the cars and campervans. They definitely have a personality.

We also walked up to the Devils Punchbowl Waterfalls, which was mind-blowing. The water falls 130m and i can honestly say I’ve never seen a waterfall quite like it. Beautiful.

After an hour and half more of breathtaking scenery we were back on the West Coast and were heading to our last stop before Franz Josef, Hokitika Gorge. We had heard that the water in this gorge is a very peculiar colour because of the glacial run off and the rock flour (powdered clay and granite) from the gorge itself. This spot is just so special. The water was a grey duck egg colour and so milky. There was a suspension bridge that we could walk over which we enjoyed, but most of all we just liked sitting by the river for a bit and taking in the scenery. Definitely worth a visit.

2 hours later we had made it to Franz Josef township. The weather had cleared up and we were getting some very impressive Southern Alps views now. We spent the evening drinking and eating with a Danish couple in the camper van next to us. They are travelling for 6 month with their 4 year old son, so massive respect to them. We had a lovely evening talking about everything and anything.

I will leave it there. I know its been a bit of a long one, but I wanted to put all of that journey into one blog for anyone thinking of driving it. I have to admit there were times whilst travelling down the West Coast where we have both been a little bored and fed up. The weather definitely didn’t help, but what I don’t expect was how barren the drive is, how little there is to do and how much you have to pay if you do want to do any experiences. We looked into Quad Biking, but it was extortionate and we have a lot of fun activities planned during our time in Glacier Country, Queenstown, Te Anu, Wanaka and Tekapo.

As we left Blenheim we decided to drive the scenic route to Nelson. It would take a little longer and would be a little windier (as in, more turns in the road), but the views were meant to be beautiful over Queen Charlotte Sound. They were! We stopped often and took some photos and enjoyed the view. The whole drive was beautiful and we arrived in Nelson a little before lunch time after driving past the beautiful coastline. I had never seen the sea this amazing pale blue colour before. Trust me, the photos don’t do it justice.

Poor Simon! I had seen a sign on the way in to Nelson for a walk to the Centre of New Zealand. Now, I honestly didn’t think that the Centre of New Zealand would be right at the top of a hill, but it was. I mean, what were the chances of that? Turns out it’s not ‘officially’ the Centre of New Zealand, but is the centre of the middle region, Nelson. Good enough for us! We got to the top a little out of breath, but as always. The view was completely worth it.

We walked back down into the centre of the city and enjoyed a stone baked pizza from a street vendor. It was so unbelievably tasty and it got me back in the good books with the husband. We had to buy a new day backpack as mine had ripped, been repaired and ripped again. I don’t want to risk losing anything from the bag so we decided it was time to bite the bullet and buy a new one from Kathmandu. Other than that, we just strolled around Nelson and really enjoyed it. It reminded us of Wellington with it’s proximity to the sea and the structure of the city. Great place!

We carried on to Kaiteriteri, which is up near the Abel Tasman National Park. We had bumped into a few people who have told us that we HAVE to go stay in Kaiteriteri and as soon as we arrived we could tell why. The beach was beautiful, there were rolling forested hills in the background and you could see the coastline that we drove along earlier that day in the distance. The water was clear and blue and the sand was golden. It was definitely the most beautiful beach we had seen so far in New Zealand. Our holiday park was right on the beach and we settled in with a walk along the beach.

For the next day we had booked to go kayaking, cruising and seal watching. Our good old trusty website friend bookme.co.nz gave us an excellent discount for this all day activity so we were happy. The only way to access the coastline of Abel Tasman National Park is by boat or by walking the Abel Tasman 71km great walk. We only had a day and didn’t really feel like a massive walk so were glad that our package included our boat trip up to Anchorage.

We got up nice and early and saw that the sun was shining! We are very aware that we have been SO fortunate with the weather recently and are very grateful. Everything in New Zealand would still be as beautiful and breathtaking even if it was raining, but I’m not sure Simon would agree that I would be the best company if I was cold and wet. Always grateful to see the sun. We headed down to the beach to get ready for our first activity of the day – sea kayaking. Simon and I have kayaked quite a lot in the past and have sea kayaked in Devon. This was our first time kayaking with a ‘skirt’ though. We were taught how to release ourselves if we ended up capsized in the water and I reminded Simon that the only reason we would, would be if he made us! Simon was going to be in the back and he was introduced to a new way of steering, a rudder controlled by foot pedals. That was going to make my life far easier.

We headed off from Kaiteriteri beach and had a lovely kayak around to one of the marine reserve islands. We saw lots of gulls nesting and a huge amount of cormorants flying around. We carried on kayaking towards Split Apple Rock. Split Apple Rock is a rock formation that looks more like an avocado, in my opinion. It is believed that it originally had a core of quartz and over time weathering caused the rock to split straight down the middle leaving the formation that we see today. It was pretty impressive.

It was time for tea and biscuits on the beach and of course this meant it was a good time to do some jumping shots. The one of me has caused me to have a bit of a back ache for the last day or so… that is how committed I was to the shot. Mum, I promise I will be more careful. The tea was great and we got chatting to our kayak guide, John, who has the same camera as us. He taught us a few tips which is great.

Back in the kayak and it was time to back up into a cave that we could paddle through. Simon was loving life at this point and having a great time. We kayaked back the way we came and couldn’t believe that 2 and a half hours had passed already. We had a really great time! We do love kayaking and were thinking about getting one when we get home and settled into work again.

We had a little bit of time for lunch before our sea shuttle took us to Anchorage. I was pretty excited at this point as we would be going past Adele Island which has a colony of Southern Fur Seals. We were very lucky as we got to see about 5 on the way to Anchorage and about 5 again on the way back. YAY! They were mainly males as they were waiting around for the females to return from hunting. The females had recently had cubs and that means it’s time to get pregnant again.

We arrived in Anchorage and it was just paradise. It was very easy to forget that we were in New Zealand. We decided to do the 1.5hour Pitt Head Loop Walk with a girl called Laura that we met on board. She was living in Wellington, but from Glasgow originally. The walk took us to lots of beautiful lookouts and down onto a bay that was just stunning (I think i need to look in a thesaurus for some more words to describe how amazing these places are).

We made it back to the beach with about 30 minutes to spare before our boat took us back to Kaiteriteri beach, so we sat on the beach and relaxed. It was such a brilliant day and when we spoke to Laura about how she had booked it, we realised again how great bookme.co.nz is at getting you a discount.

That evening we enjoyed an icecream and settled in to watch some of ‘The Two Towers – Extended Edition’. We’ve been working our way through the Lord of the Rings movies again.

 

We were onboard our Interislander ferry by around 8:30am with a sail time of 9:30am. We had checked in a lot earlier and had to sit in the car waiting in lanes for a while before that. Simon wasn’t too disappointed by that as he saw a huge group of McLaren cars while we waited. One of them costing 1 million dollars. Jeez! He took a lot of photos and had to be ushered back into the car when we needed to board. The group was doing a tour of the country, stopping at race tracks often to properly enjoy their cars. Once on board we had a conversation with the tours videographer, who turned out to be a videographer for top gear! Pretty cool.

The first thing we did was book ourselves in to watch ‘The accountant’ in the little cinema on board and then get a bacon egg muffin. Yummy! I had taken my seasickness tablets and was starting to feel a little doppy. To cut a long story short, I fell asleep in the cinema and later realised I had accidentally taken 2 tablets when I should have taken 1. Whoops! I won’t be doing that again!! I felt horrible. Apparently the film was pretty good. I only remember the very beginning haha!

The film finished just as we were coming into all of the beautiful Sounds of the South Island. The whole area was just so beautiful and we were so glad that we were going to have the time to explore the North of the South Island when so many people rush straight off to the West or East Coast. Once we got off the ferry we were heading to Blenheim. We were going to have an explore of Picton that afternoon, but I was still feeling pretty doppy so we headed to Blenheim and I slept for 2 hours and didn’t do a lot else with the day except food shopping and cooking. Simon was happy for a rest I think. That’s one thing we’ve been pretty bad at whilst travelling, just taking the odd day to do not a lot.

The weather had turned the next day, but we headed out early anyway to the Omaka Aviation Centre. Simon had seen an advert for this the day previously and really wanted to go to see the World War 2 display of aircraft. Simon found it all very informative, surprisingly modern and unexpected. They had on display a Hurricane, Stuka, Spitfire, P40 and a Yak aircraft. All of the displays were built around very real scenes which made it far more interesting for someone like me and there was a huge amount of boards of information to read. There was a movie about Stalingrad, which made us reflect, especially about the numbers of casualties during the war particularly in the Soviet Union. It was a really interesting morning.

We drove to Picton, put on many layers and our waterproofs and headed out for a walk. I’m like a dog, I need to be exercised at least once a day. We decided to walk along the front and also along the Bobs Cove walk which took us about 1.5 hours return in total. It gave us a chance to look at some of the beautiful scenery we had seen coming into the harbour the day before, but at a much slower pace.

Afterwards we spent some time in the Picton National Whale Centre where we learnt more about the whaling industry in New Zealand and also about the species that can be found here. The centre is really informative and completely free. Definitely worth some time if you are coming through the area.

On our way out of Picton we decided to go for one more walk at Karaka Point Lookout and Maori Pa Site. It wasn’t a long walk, but it took us through some old Maori ruins and then down to Karaka Beach, which was breathtaking. We watched gulls munching on mussel shells and did a spot of rock pooling. Lovely. The next day we were going on a Marlborough Sounds Winery bike ride so wanted to get some good rest to be on top form for wine tasting.

We were picked up in the morning by Wine Tours by Bike and then taken to their office where we would be collecting our bikes, helmets and maps of the area. The whole tour was going to be self guided, which is what we wanted. We were given so much information by the owner at the start about the region, the local vineyards and how to get around on our bikes. There were around 15 vineyards within a reasonable radius that we could visit during our time, but it was best to aim to visit 5. We tagged along with 2 couples from the States for the day and had the best time tasting wine and riding our bikes.We visited: Forrest, Bladen, Nautilus, No 1, Whitehaven, Wairau River and then went back to Forrest to buy some wine. Most of the vineyards did free tasting or it was a really small fee to taste up to 6 or 7 wines. We stopped for a cheese board at Nautilus which was so delicious and just had the BEST day. The sun was shining, the wine was flowing.

There are so many people back in the UK that this day made me think of. I know so many of you would have LOVED this experience and really hope that you get to experience this in the future. Wine Tours by Bike took us back to our accommodation and I couldn’t more highly recommend them. They were so professional and helpful. We met some Kiwi’s and one Brit on the transfer bus back and we arranged to go to the local beer garden for some drinks that evening, which was also brilliant fun.

Our time in Blenheim and the Marlborough Sounds region had come to an end and we were heading up to the Nelson and Abel Tasman region the next day. We had a great time gaining more wine knowledge and we can’t wait to show it off when we get back 🙂

We left Napier with a 4 hour drive ahead of us. We hadn’t planned to stop at all as we wanted to get to Wellington and have the whole day there to explore. This is not how it worked out. There were 2 very interesting signs on the way which we had to investigate. Our first sign came around 90km away from Wellington. We had been driving through some pretty strong winds and heavy rain, but it had been getting lighter so we decided to take a 11km detour to check out the contents of this sign. So, what did we go to see?

There is one of these in England, it is pretty famous and most people visiting the UK will go and visit this tourist attraction. In England, you can’t touch it and it’s not as impressive as another one that is similar to it. My parents live pretty close to it. Stonehenge!! The sign that we saw said Stonehenge Aeoteroa (Stonehenge New Zealand). Being born and bred in Wiltshire, we had to go check it out. When we got there we watched a video explaining the design of the stone circle and the other stones around the edge of the circle. It was very clever, because they had designed it that 3 of the stones matched the horizon in the distance so that the sun rose perfectly over the stones at different times of the year. There was also another 3 stones at the front in which the sun would rise over during the 2 solstices and the middle stone twice a year over the equinox. There was also a monument that highlighted the position of the Seven Sisters in the night sky and a hole in the middle pillar which if you looked through would show you the rotational point of the stars.

We walked around the site for a while and had a lot of fun a) touching the stones and b) taking cool photos. Enjoy!

We got back on the road planning to head straight to Wellington and then came the second sign. The sign was equally intriguing and we had to stop. This sign said ‘Rivendell’. For most of my audience, I will not need to say anymore, but I will clarify for the rest of you that Rivendell is a location in the Lord of the Rings. Rivendell in the movies is absolutely stunning so we decided to go and have a look. The area is very pretty, but once we got there the information boards told us some interesting facts about the area. 1) All of the set has been taken away from the area to restore the National Park back to its original state 2) Most of the dramatic scenery was filmed in Fiordland on the South Island and then super imposed on top of the Rivendell filming. It was a lovely little walk and there was a pretty river and swing bridge so we spent some time here looking around.

Having vowed to not stop again until we made it to Wellington we carried on. I can’t tell you why it happened, but as we were driving through the suburb area of Upper and Lower Hutt we both felt really positive about Wellington. The whole place felt great, the sun was shining (which probably helped), we’d just driven through beautiful National Parks and we had the rest of the afternoon ahead of us to explore. Just to jump ahead of myself a bit, to this day we are still in LOVE with Wellington. We had the best time here. It is a capital city without being huge, it’s coastal without losing its city appeal, it’s just great!! We checked into our holiday park and got straight on the bus to head into town.

We wanted to go and spend a bit of time in Te Papa Museum before it closed. Te Papa is the National Museum of New Zealand and we were not disappointed. The exhibitions told you all you needed to know about the history of New Zealand. Right from the structure of the Earth to Earthquakes, Volcanoes, Maori settlement, European settlement, current day refugee support etc. It was such a brilliant museum and really well thought through. We even got to stand in an Earthquake simulator and experience what it would be like to feel a 6. something whilst inside a wooden house. How realistic this is I do not know. I imagine every earthquake is a little different. We didn’t quite get around all of the museum that afternoon so said we would go back if we could the next day to look at the Mother land exhibition (Britain) and the Maori culture exhibition. I would completely recommend this if you are in Wellington.

After this we headed to Lambton Quay to take the cable car up to get some stunning views back over the city. Seeing as it was around 6.30pm we thought most tourists would be going up there to see the sunset and it would be really busy. Nope. It was just us and a few commuters. The ride was great! They have disco lights in the tunnels which was brilliant, but it was all over too soon.

We completed the cable car circuit walk when we got up there, taking us through the botanical gardens and around by the observatories and of course providing us with panoramic views throughout most of the walk. We loved it. You should have seen the grins on our faces. Well you might get to in some of the pictures. We walked back through town and decided we needed some food. It was nearly 8.30pm by this point. We were having so much fun we had forgotten to eat… rare for Simon.

We decided to try a restaurant we had seen around called Burger Fuel. It’s a mix between a takeaway and a restaurant. The burgers were really good. Oh and the kumara fries (sweet potato). They even had this cool cardboard burger holder device to hold you burger while you ate it. Unfortunately, I failed to get a photo of it. Guess we’ll have to go again. We got the last bus back to our holiday park and got ready for another full day in Wellington the next day.

We got up early as we were heading over to the suburb region of Miramar to take a workshop tour of Weta Cave. Weta Cave is where they build all the props for so many famous films including Avatar, LoTR, The Hobbit trilogy and so many more. The company is cofounded by Peter Jackson and has grown bigger and bigger with time. There is a sister company called Weta Digital that does all the CGI and computer generated animation for the movies, but we weren’t able to have a look around that. The tour was around an hour and we couldn’t take any pictures whilst in the studio because all of the props are owned by the film companies, but were allowed to take some in the shop. We learnt so many cool on screen tips and tricks for making things look authentic and got to see some of the stages for the production of different props. They were working on a sword of some sort whilst we were there.. who knows what movie that will appear in, they didn’t tell us anything about the future unfortunately. I was hoping to hear some secret news about Avatar.

After our tour we drove along some of the beautiful bays of Wellington, dropped Maverick back at the holiday park and took the bus into Wellington again.

The first thing we were going to do, much to Simon’s dismay was a walk to the top of Mount Victoria to the lookout. It was pretty steep in places, but we managed. We even found a slide on the way up which we spent some time playing on to catch our breath. No one else was playing on it… I found that odd. Eventually we made it to the top and WOW! Check it out.

We learnt that Wellington has around 170 days where the wind is over 30 knots and yes we didn’t doubt it as it was very windy at the top of Mount Victoria. The city also has a green band around it which the original mayor intended for 2 reasons 1) The British settlers were used to dirty air and this would make them more settled here and 2) It would increase the cost of land within the green belt.

We climbed back down and went back to Te Papa Museum. Had a lovely coffee and finished off the exhibits we hadn’t had a chance to before. We walked around the city and just really enjoyed ourselves. Here’s some of our shots out and around Wellington.

We were getting up at 6am the next day to get ourselves checked in for our ferry crossing to the South island so reluctantly we headed back to our holiday park and cooked dinner. We had heard different things about Wellington before we left and came in with minimal expectations of what it would be like. It blew us away. Realistically we know that it wouldn’t be like that if we lived there and even if we were just there for a longer period. We had ticked off most of the within Wellington tourist activities, but there are huge National Parks just on the doorstep as well as loads of beautiful beaches to explore. We will 100% be back in Wellington in the future!

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.