This is going to be my last blog post for a while. I think I might come back and add another reflection at some point, but no promises. This last vacation was something I've looked forward to for a very long time. I'm currently back in Canada and besides suffering through some bad jet-lag, setting off my windshield wipers instead of my turn signal, and having my face hurt from cold from the first time in a year, I'm doing great!
I decided early on that our last trip would include going to New Zealand as I've always wanted to see it since watching the Lord of the Rings movies. I did some research and decided that using a camper van to get around would be the best way to go about seeing what I wanted to see and keep costs down. In New Zealand there are a whole range of free camping sites for anyone with a certified self-contained vehicle. Unfortunately, December is their peak travel period and we were able to only afford a bare minimum camper-van which we got off of 'share-a-camper.' Lucky for us it was a diesel engine as petrol (gas) was between $2 and $2.15 per litre.
As soon as we got it we picked up some groceries from the Countdown store and made our way towards the Coromandel Peninsula. We didn't make it and had a hard time finding a free site that was open. It was getting past 1 am New Zealand time so we found a spot where we parked for the night at Waitawa regional Park. I'm pretty sure we weren't really allowed to camp there, but I was too tired and we left first thing in the morning with no issues from the park rangers.
Our trip the next morning took us past the Firth of Thames up to Coromandel. It was an amazingly scenic "great ocean road" type drive on a skinny, twisty road. We stopped for lunch somewhere past Thames and got some ridiculously expensive sunscreen in Coromandel. $9.99 in Australia, but $28.99 in New Zealand!
From there we decided to head over to Hot Water beach and Cathedral Cove. Better said than done! This was along a very windy road that ended up being a gravel road and then a mud road. Along one of the curves, a young guy who was cutting corners and going much too fast (I sound so old) had to slam on his brakes and slid about 5 metres on the gravel narrowly missing my van!
Hot water beach is sort of a misnomer as the ocean water itself was cool, but there was a hot spring that ran off into the ocean. The kids loved it here and just wanted to stay floating around in the nice, warm shallow water. After about an hour we decided to check out Cathedral Cove, which is apparently where they filmed some of Prince Caspian of the Chronicles of Narnia. The beach was very nice and we watched the water taxi go by. There were beautiful limestone islands with sheer cliffs to look at as we walked around. We continued to have difficulty finding a free campsite as they were very busy. We ended up paying for this night in a rain forest campsite.
The next day we headed to Tauranga and climbed Mount Maunganui, for perhaps the best view in our entire trip. The day was nice and hot and perfect without a cloud in the sky. We walked by sheep lounging on the sloping hill, and then saw coastline as far as the eye could see. The beach looked amazingly white and we could see ships sailing slowly away into the distance. After climbing down we had some incredible ice cream (and frozen yoghurt for me) on the beach and made our way onto our next destination. We slept at a free camp site near Lake Taupo and I was worried that it was going to be party central as there were so many other campervans in the area. However, unlike Canada, everyone was relatively quiet and respectful without loud music.
Our first stop the next day was at Craters of the Moon to see some geothermal activity in the region. I called this the road to Mordor as you could see Mount Ngauruhoe (Mount Doom from the Lord of the Rings in the distance). There were tons of craters with steam rising and bubbling out of mud puddles along the way.
We then drove to Lake Taupo for lunch and made our way to Tongariro National Park to see the mountains and volcano. Unfortunately as we got there a low cloud had rolled in and it looked like it was ready to rain any minute. We did the short walk (not the 6 hour alpine crossing) and left for Waitomo.
At Waitomo we went underground into their large underground caves. They are known for having glow worms in their caverns, and they did not disappoint. We got into a row boat and floated down a pitch black underground lake. Thousands of fluorescent green glow worms that looked like little laser pointers were hanging from the ceiling. It was amazing to behold and the kids thought it was the best thing we did in New Zealand. Way better than hiking stupid mountains daddy!
The next day I had an early morning appointment at The Hobbiton Movie set, which is near Metamata. As we got near, you could see why it was picked. It was just rolling green hills with filled with livestock. Our guide was hilarious and had intimate details of the sets and how they were made. For example the tree on top of Bag End was originally cut down from another location and planted on top of the hill, but Peter Jackson didn't like the way the leaves looked so he had new ones hand made out of silk and wired on. For the Hobbit movies they had to remake the entire set as it was destroyed after the Lord of the Rings, and they had to make that tree out of plaster.
We spent the day marveling at all of the little details before sitting in the Green Dragon inn for some complimentary South Farthing ale and ginger beer for the kids. Afterwards I made a small "precious" purchase in the gift shop.
We quickly made our way to Auckland to hand off our camper van and as Henry remarked drive on the left hand side of the road for the last time.
In Auckland we stayed at an Airbnb in Blockhouse Bay run by a couple of friendly bachelors. We used Uber at this point to get around and visited the Auckland Tower, a very Kiwi Santa and enjoyed the local cuisine. Jenny had no idea what kumara fries were, but ordered them anyway.
We went to Devonport on our last day, which is a nice little seaside suburb of Auckland with a small town feel. It was very overcast and rainy, but we made the best of it. I made everyone hike up one last mountain to see the views of the city. We walked over to Torpedo Bay and enjoyed the naval museum there with all of its little model ships.
On our way home we stopped in Maui for a relaxing vacation from our vacation. I'm just going to include the photos, as we didn't really do much more than stay by the pool and the beach!
Well that's it! I'm done and hopefully this was an enjoyable blog of our family's journey to Australia and beyond for a year. Look below for the map of our campervan travels in New Zealand.
Cheers,
Jim
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