New Zealand - North Island

We landed into Auckland in New Zealand’s North Island after a 16 hour flight some 2 days after we took off from Chile - due to our crossing of the international date line & effectively losing a day en-route. Being surrounded by English speaking people now felt strange after being used to Spanish for so long. When people asked us questions our initial instinct was to respond in Spanish, our brains having grown so accustomed to thinking that way - which earned us a few strange looks. Nowhere more so than the supermarket - around which we were already walking like a couple of weirdoes who had never before seen a large, well stocked shop selling products that any British supermarket would sell…looks like we’d better ease ourselves into this culture shock!

Although not the capital city of New Zealand, Auckland is by far the most populous place in the country, with the majority of the countries 4 million population living in & around the greater Auckland area. Set in a harbour with several islands just of shore, with desirable waterfront properties, a good mix of modern & traditional architecture, plenty of good restaurants & bars & within easy reach of the beach it‘s not hard to see the appeal.

After spending a few days around the city, catching up with Leanne & Ruth again - who had been in NZ a couple of weeks already by this point - we hired a car & spent a few days taking a road trip around the Northern Peninsula - the main draw card of the area being the Bay of Islands, which is exactly as the name suggests, located in the aquamarine coloured waters of the Tasman Sea - a very beautiful spot. Stopping off on our way down south we dropped in Neal, a friend from home who now lives over here - in a nice 2 bed sea view apartment - something of an upgrade from his Northampton digs, & doing well for himself out here which was good to see.

Dropping the car off, we jump on a bus down to the volcanic thermal hot pool town of Rotorua. Buses here are a far cry from the luxury of the Argentine & Peruvian buses we had become accustomed to - just an old beaten up coach this time. Due to the amount of hot sulphur pools in Rotorua, the town has a pleasant smell of rotten eggs drifting through most of the time - and is affectionately known by the locals as Rotten-rua.

Here we visited the Wai-o-Tapu ‘Thermal Wonderland’ as it’s known - just out of Rotorua along the ‘Thermal Explorer Highway’ (actual name) - an impressive array of multi coloured thermal mud pools, ranging from a vibrant bright lime, white, blue, green & the centrepiece known as the ’Champagne Pool’ which is a blend of various shades of bright orange, red & yellow - one of the North Island’s main iconic landscape sites.

A little further south we meet up with Leanne, Ruth & Sue again in Taupo, a town set on the side of the huge volcanic crater lake of the same name, from where we dig out the hiking boots again & spend the day hiking the ‘Tongariro Crossing’ - an 8 hour trek that takes you up & over some truly dramatic & impressive volcanic mountain terrain - much of which was used in the filming of the Lord of The Rings Trilogy, including the peak that was cast as Mount Doom in the films, it’s real name being Mount Ngauruhoe…Doom obviously being the easier one of the two to pronounce.

We were blessed with one of the few days of clear blue skies & sunshine we had while in NZ whilst on the hike, providing us with stunning views throughout the day, some of the landscape resembling the otherworldly terrain which we had seen during the Bolivian Uyuni tour, deep red rock colourings, yellow & white plateaus, the flattened infill of volcanic craters & vibrant turquoise pools & lakes.

That night we stayed in one of New Zealand’s many one horse towns - the few residents that lived there all congregating around the local pub, which was essentially a betting shop that also doubled up as a bar - the Kiwi’s having clearly latched onto the money making potential of housing the glorious combination of alcohol & gambling under the one roof - something that as we would discover pretty much defines the pub culture of New Zealand. The general routine seems to be for all the women to gather together with their booze in the area that has all the slot machines, merrily throwing their money away as they drink & chat among themselves, while all the men stand permanently transfixed to the dog racing & horse racing screens, one hand on their pint, the other on the pen filling out their betting slips. Funny.

Our next & final stop in the North Island is the coastal city of Wellington - the capital of New Zealand. This was the one place in the North Island that we had been to previously, when we came to NZ 5 years ago for Darren & Nicola’s wedding. Leanne’s friends, Pauline & Nate live in Wellington, & kindly put us up for the majority of our stay in Wellington. They have a beautiful place up a hillside over looking the city & Wellington harbour, & on a clear day you can see across the Cook Straits down to the South Island. Pauline & Nate gave us the guided tour of Wellington, driving us around the rugged coastline, taking a walk out to Red Rock point - which, as with most things in NZ, is exactly as it sounds - a point on the coastline with some red rocks. We went around the area where Peter Jackson has his film production studios, & the ‘Weta Caves’ are - the animation company that created all the special effects characters for Lord of the Rings & many other films. They took us around the Sunday food market in the harbour full of fresh fish that the fishermen bring in that morning from where we bought up a great selection of fish for a fish pie cooked up for dinner that night. Nate runs a bar in Wellington, so we had an inside track to the Wellington night life which also came in handy.

After a few really nice days in Wellington (even if it did rain the majority of the time!) we jumped on the ferry across the Cook Straits down to the South Island.