I’ve opted to put all of the North Island into a single post, even though it will make it a bit longer. I’ve fallen behind in my posts in part because we packed a lot in with New Zealand and the full schedule continued into the Middle East.
Our North Island tour actual starts on the South Island. We experienced the power of Google tracking us as every time we research something, it shows up in our news feed. I had purchased a ferry pass between the two islands a long time ago, having learned that they can book up early. That meant that I kept getting news about New Zealand ferries. The cyclone that went through in February certainly started things off on the wrong foot, but both the main companies were starting to experience mechanical failures due to aging fleets, with one even losing power just before port and needing tugs to bring it in. With so many recent issues, if you didn’t have a ticket, it was multiple weeks until the next available slot and if your trip got cancelled, you ended up at the back of the queue. So we had a bit of concern as we arrived in Picton for our ferry to Wellington and there was evidence of camper vans backed up in the streets of Picton. We went to bed after checking in with the office and everything was set to go at that time. However, the overnight ferry leaving from Wellington on its way to Picton to get us had a mechanical issue and didn’t arrive meaning our trip was cancelled. What a mess and we had to scramble to find a flight instead. In the end we lost our day in Wellington but didn’t have to cancel any hotels or disrupt any other parts of our trips, for which we were very thankful. It all makes big news in New Zealand as it is super disruptive to locals who have cars stuck on the wrong island and have to wait weeks to fly back across and try again.
Nelson
There were only 3 seats left on a flight we found from Picton and in the scramble to find flights like everyone else, we ended up needing to drive about 2 hours to Nelson in order to get to Wellington on a 7pm flight.
What we didn’t know is that we would get to experience small town airports. The picture on the left is the one and only gate, ticketing is to the left with the entrance to the airport behind the picture (note that there is no security to go through, something I haven’t seen since before 9-11). The picture on the right are our boarding passes after we checked in. We were on a 12 seater Cessna and were passengers 6 to 9. The same guy that checked us in, also walked us out to the airplane and loaded the luggage and helped the pilot start the plane. Definitely a change from our normal airport experience.
We only had 1 pilot and it was the first flying experience for the girls where they could see out the front cockpit and see the runway.
Taupo and the Waitomo Glowworm Caves
Having arrived late at our first stop on the North Island just outside of Wellington, we started the next day towards Taupo. Julia has some friends from Calvin University that she played in the orchestra with who live there now and it was relatively close to the glow worm caves. We made a few stops along the way and arrived late afternoon. They were both playing their instruments for the community choir’s Easter Concert that night and we attended the concert which was nice. The next day we headed to the glow worms and then to their place for dinner and a visit.
The glow worms are actually the larva stage of some carnivorous fungus gnats that have bioluminescent to attract insects which hopefully get caught in about a 20 cm sticky thread that hangs down. We visited two cave systems with Waitomo being the one with the most glow worms that you visit by foot and by boat. In that cave, they don’t allow you to take pictures in the water system where there are the most glow worms. So I had to snag some promo pictures from the web which of course over emphasis how much they glow with long exposure times.
The promo pics aren’t that realistic but give you an idea. They weren’t quite so bright, and the numbers were down due to all the rain on the North Island flooding the caves, but in the big cave with the boat, they did seem like stars in the sky and were pretty cool.
We could only take pics as we exited the cave.
The second cave we went to just down the road was the Ruakuri cave system. This one had more tours of caves as well as some small clusters of glow worms.
To protect the natural cave entrance, they built this tall spiral walkway to get down to the cave level (also a promo shot since mine turned out poorly).
Some amazing stalagmites which were super small and thin, almost like the glow worm threads, but in this case they were rock.
These are a few glow worms with their silk threads lit up by our guide’s flashlight for about 3 seconds so that the light wouldn’t affect the glow worms too much (you had to be quick with your camera!). Each worm puts down a few threads. The picture on the right is our attempt to take a picture of them glowing. To the normal eye they are brighter than the picture and in the big water cave, there were lots more.
And as mentioned above, we headed back to Taupo for an evening of catching up with friends, enjoying dinner together, and the kids hanging out.
One of my cousin lives in Tauranga so the next day we headed off there. However we made a few stops along the way.
Huka Falls which wasn’t a big falls from a vertical perspective but it had this massive chute before the falls with a lot of very fast water shooting down it.
The city of Taupo is on Lake Taupo which is actually a large caldera volcano filled with water. So this area is known for geothermal activity (with a number of geothermal plants) and this extended north towards Tauranga. We stopped at the Waiotapu Mud Pool on recommendation of our friends.
Pictures are pretty cool, but the videos really capture it!
The next stop was at Rotarua Kuirau Park which had a number of hot spring pools.
There were even a few pools where you could soak your feet.
As mentioned in other posts, we didn’t go out of our way to see LOTR locations, but we enjoyed what we could when it came into play. Between Taupo and Tauranga was the Hobbiton movie scene set. However, since it costs about $90 per person, we decided to just enjoy the countryside views from our car as we drove along rather than go to the actual set.
Tauranga
It was nice to spend a few days with my cousin and her family and to go to Easter service with them (clear indication of how far behind I am).
Marika took advantage of being in a house with a stocked kitchen in order to do her next science experiment. I don’t remember doing this experiment in high school and didn’t realize that the water from boiled red cabbage can be used as a pH tester.
My cousin had most of the test elements (vinegar, milk, baking soda, etc.) but saliva required donations from dad to complete the test.
We took a hike together up Mount Maunganui at the tip of Tauranga overlooking the harbour and the city.
The marker at the summit was just too inviting not to climb.
Coromandel
For a while we were unsure which part of the North Island to head to, either Coromandel or Bay of Islands. Both were promoted by people but both were effected still by road closures from the February Cyclone. We had booked cancellable accommodations in both, but in the end decided on Coromandel, in part because it had fewer road closures and because it would save about 9 hours of driving.
The beach close to our hotel.
We did go to Hot Water Beach but it was a pretty cold day, the beach hot spot was really crowded, and you could see rain coming so it didn’t seem worth the effort to try and find a spot to dig a big enough pool to sit in. It also looked like those that tried weren’t too successful with the wind picking up and waves crashing in and flooding out the pools. Instead we dug little spots to put our feet into so we could at least experience the hot water.
The next day we went to the Driving Creek Railway and Pottery shop. It is a quirky little stop that grew out of the passions of one guy, Barry Brickell, who purchased the land in 1973 for its rich terracotta clay to support a co-operative pottery studio he wanted to start. The original narrow gage track was setup to help transport the clay but it grew from there with a lot of determination and effort. He researched and surveyed the area and taught himself engineering so he could get up the mountain, including some unique features for switchbacks. The area was called Driving Creek because it was all forested and the cut trees were driven down the creeks to the mills. He therefore also established a conservation area and planted only native trees to reforest his property. It’s all now a tourist spot.
A few tunnels were needed to get to the top, all built with clay from the property and fired in the kilns there.
He also made use of any recyclable materials he could find for retaining walls.
One feature was a double decker bridge across a gulley with a big loop on one end. So on the way up, you went along the bottom, looped 360 and came out back across the face of the mountain on the upper level.
The most unique features though were the switch backs where it was just too steep and/or not enough room to do a loop and circle back. Instead the train would pull out onto a platform extending out of the mountain and the driver would get out of the “front” of the train and head to the “back”, throw the switch on the track, and keep driving. The front and the back swapped a few times on the way to the top.
The top is called the Eyefull Tower for its beautiful view point.
Auckland
From there we drove to the Auckland area and stayed in a cute little cabin on a farm just south of Auckland for a chance to do laundry before our next leg of our journey and a chance to get caught up on booking and school for a day, with a bit of relaxation since the location prompted it!
Our favourite drink in New Zealand was L&P which looked a lot like champagne or sparkling white wine in the only cup left for Annika in the cabin, a wine glass. L&P has the clever slogan of “World famous in New Zealand” which is pretty accurate. Never seen it any where else but it was all over New Zealand.
The morning of our last day in New Zealand before our afternoon flight we stopped in downtown Auckland and visited the Sky Tower.
Though not as tall as the CN Tower, it was similar to the CN Tower in that it had glass floors as well. Therefore Annika had to replay her CN Tower act of jumping on the glass floor. The engineering part of my brain fully understands the glass is as strong if not stronger than the concreate around it, but the rest of my brain goes “nope, ain’t doing that”.
We have so many lovely memories of New Zealand and we are really glad we could spend the time we did here.