So far, New Zealand has been amazing. Tasty wines, luscious scenery, big whales, small towns and some great drives. It’s also amazingly expensive relative to South America and as I sit in this internet cafe next to Fran, I’ve been informed that we’re over half of the way through our budget and only just over a third of the way through the trip. Let’s hope Asia is cheaper or we may be seeing you sooner than you expect

We last left you on the border of Argentina and Chile. After a few relaxing days spent in Santiago (Hi to Frankie and Lee!) we took a short hop to Auckland in New Zealand, Fran being very excited about the fact that we were losing a day. Nige being very excited that he was going to be an Aukland in Auckland (small things…).  Sunday 2nd August flew by (excuse the pun). Arriving in Auckland we were immediately struck by the ease of doing anything and so took the first chance we could get to treat ourselves to an English breakfast and headed to Parnell – an area recommended to us by James and Nathan the Kiwis who we happen to bump into again in Santiago.

After quickly recovering from the flight, we spent a few days exploring our new surroundings in very mild sunny weather – a visit to the pretty Auckland Domain and the informative Auckland museum to find out about the Maoris (indigenous NZ population present before the arrival of Tasman and Cook, they now make up around 20% of the population and live mostly on the north island). In the Hauraki Gulk off the east coast of Auckland lies the 600 year old Rangitoto island formed by Auckland’s most recent volcanic explosion (Auckland is actually built on a field of around 100 volcanoes.)

Rangitoto volcano

View from the top of volcano

It made a glorious boat trip and afternoon hike up to the summit for some views of the Auckland harbour. Not content with a natural high, we went for an artificial lift up to the sky tower for a chilled bottle of “sav” and a view over Auckland at night.

One unexpected highlight of the city must be the “heritage walk of Ponsonbury” – an area rich in history from the colonial days and now a slightly alternative but cool area both day and night. Thanks Fran for what sounded like the most boring idea for a walk but turned out to be one of the best!

The remainder of our time in Auckland was spent with Catherine and Neil, friends of Fran’s from the UK and holders of my driving license and bank card – thanks guys, much appreciated! A few nights out, pizza and singstar completed our cultural introduction to New Zealand and served as a great send off as Launch Day was appraching. Let me explain…

Fran and the spaceship

Behold “Babylon 5″ – the Spaceship. Despite the awful name for a company and even worse branding, this van is to be our home for 40 days and 40 nights. According to the company, your “Spaceship” will help you navigate through “Space”, meeting fellow “Astronauts” for space related fun and frolics. In reality, what we have is an old Toyota people carrier which has been emptied of uphostory and then fitted out with a bed, fridge, stove and DVD player – not bad! And pretty cheap too as it’s the off season (winter) here and not many people want to be sleeping in a giant orange coffin!

So, equipped with our super uncool camper van, we headed for Rotorua – home of bubbling volcanic mud, sulphur smells and lots of Maori history. Built in a huge volcanic crater (sensible?) Rotorua is spotted with bubbling mud pools and volcanic vents – a very surreal landscape.

Smells

Bubblin hot

Unfortunately for that reason it stinks, as anyone who has been there can tell you. Really great place with lots to do and see, including a visit to Temaki villiage – a re-enactment of a Maori settlement – sounds like our idea of tourist hell but it was surprisingly interesting and good fun! You get to see real life (staged) basket weaving, haka, poi spinning, face painting and hangi eating (cooking from the ground) – the eating of course being the highlight of the night

Feeling warm with the rosy glow of culture, the following day we paid a visit to Te Puia to see New Zealand’s largest geyser (pretty cool, and wet) and set off for a campsite on the banks of Waikaremoana in Te Urewara national park. There are many cheap campsites in awesome locations owned by the DOC (Department of Conservation) which are far preferable to staying in “Top 10 holiday parks” which are the equivalent of Eurocamp or Butlins. Waikaremoana served as a base for a hike to Waikareti where we set afloat an 80kg metal dingy. It was our first taste of the New Zealand wilderness and was amazing to spend some time in the middle of nowhere doing some fishing and eating tuna sandwiches. Unfortunately I caught nothing and Fran only managed to catch a log (I’ve never seen someone so excited) so we went back empty handed, but ruddy cheeked and ready for our next adventure.

Fisherman!

Lonely campsite on Waikaremoana ...

Further southwest took us to Napier – Art Deco central. The town was wrecked by an earthquake in the 30s and was rebuilt, pretty much from scratch, using the cutting edge architecture of the times – ziggurats, speed lines, sunbursts, the works!

Art deco in Napier (or is it Blackpool?)

Spot of golf on the promenade!

You have to see it to believe it, or be an OAP. More interesting however was the surrounding area of Hawkes Bay, world renowned for it’s wineries producing sauvignon blancs, rieslings, viogniers and some interesting gewurztraminers. (Do you know how long it took to spell check those on google??!!) The kiwis know how to run wine tasting… thirty five wines later and we were already looking forward to our next wine tour!

The start of the end...

Heading toward the South Island, we stopped off in Wellington – apparently pretty good night life but we were happy to have a hangover induced early night after the previous day’s viticultural frolics. It was wet, and a bit windy in Welly, but that’s about all I have to say unfortunately. Oh, and it was home to Peter Jackson and one of the centres of the Lord of the Rings filmings which iterests me, and interests Fran not at all. I even picked up a copy of the “Lord of the Rings film location guidebook”. Cool.

So, like drooling alcoholics we headed to Blenheim – Cathy and Rich you would be loving this! Home of Cloudy Bay wines and many others that few of you would have heard of as wine production here is on a small scale.

A few more rieslings and that could read Framlingham...

Gifted with awesome warm and dry weather, wine rules here. We still managed to finish our wine tour with a few pints at the Cork and Keg in Renwick – if any of you visit the area, you have to go to this place - a “English Pub” complete with log fire, deisel heaters outside and steak/fish pies on the menu. Winner! Nige also managed to catch his first trout here, which I will report was at LEAST 10 pound, but just happened to get away…

Fishy antics continuing, we crawled down the cost to  beatiful Kaikoura (meaning kai-food koura-crayfish) for a spot of whale watching , sheep shearing and crayfish eating. Really great costal roads led us to the Kaikoura peninsula where daily tours head out to spot Albatross, sperm whales, fur seals, dolphins and other marine wildlife. Our whale watching tour was immensely successful as we managed to sight three sperm whales on different occasions which is a truly amazing experience being so near a living mammal so big.

Sperm whale tailfin

The whale stalking duo

Indeed

kiakoura

Just to top off the tourist agenda, a quick visit to the “Point B&B Sheep Shearing Show” was a perfect introduction to the world of Drysdales and Merinos. Though it was less of a show as there were only the two of us there! Bless “Dave the famer” who still fleeced a whole ewe for us – I have you know that professional shearers can shear 700 in an 8 hour working day! (Of course with official shearer judges present to ensure an acceptable level of fleecing.)

Fran and a beautiful drysdale specimen

Fascinating. So where was I? Oh yeah, Kaikoura – crayfish. Expensive old things they are. NZ$50 well spent though – half a cray each, caught that very morning on the shoreline in sight of the sea and seals – couldn’t get fresher than that!

Crayfish on the coast!

We head south to Christchurch towards the snow capped peaks and the glimmering lakes leaving behind us the sunny green hills and agriculture of the north, just as Frodo did.

P.S. A reminder – if you want to see where we’ve been and where we are at the minute, don’t forget to follow the link in the top right labelled “follow us around the globe”.

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