Snow snow snow

Orc holiday to Mt Doom

We have been hearing reports from home of snow…well, today, we found some too!

We spent the morning driving from Lake Taupo to Tongariro National Park. This took us within sight of lots of snowy mountains! The most exciting of which, Mt Ngaurauhoe – was used as Mt Doom in the LOTR films!

We took a drive as far as you could up into the ski resort on Mt Ruapehu, which is where we got up close and personal with the snow. Everyone else around us was appropriately dressed. We, on the other hand, were wearing shorts. (I was actually wearing flip flops!)

cold feet

After lunch in the cafe, we took a walk in the snow, and got our feet quite wet! Although there was still snow, there’s not a lot of skiiing going on, and they were taking the ski lifts apart – so the season is obviously over.

From there, we headed on to our stop for the night at Ohakune – where we found the best internet connection we have found so far!

So we haven’t done too much else today. We’re now making our way down to Wellington, where we have booked a ferry crossing for (early) Monday morning to take us over to the South Island.

Jill

Is the Jumping Pillow just for children?

So today saw us leave Rotorua. We headed off early this morning (up at 7 and it nearly killed us!) Our plan today was to head to another geothermal park – Wai-o-tapu. It was on the way to our next stop – Lake Taupo. The reason for the early start was we needed to be there before 10 to get our tickets, as the resident geyser – Lady Knox puts on a show every day at 10.15am.

Lady Knox Geyser

As we sat in the little ampitheatre full of people staring at a hole in the ground, we wondered how they know for sure that it will go off at that time every day. We found out soon enough …they throw a bar of soap in it! Something about prisoners washing their clothes in the hot water in the ground back in the day…adding soap, and finding their clothes blasted into the air! So they use this method to regulate the geyser every day, to make sure people get to see it in action! And very impressive it was too!

Then it was back to the main park for a 3km walk round some more smelly stuff! A wide variety of steaming vents, mudpools, strangely coloured lakes and a lot more. All very interesting, but the smell really does get a bit much after a while!

So after that, it was on to Lake Taupo. Now, the weather today was a bit miserable. So bad in fact that our raincoats got their first airing in the entire time we have been away! By the time we arrived at our camp site the weather had improved considerably.

It was at this point that we decided we couldn’t really be bothered doing anything else today – we have had our fill of looking at stuff over the last few days, and just wanted to relax! Turns out this was a good place to do so!

First of all, we had a game of larger than life  draughts set out on the ground. Jonny beat me. Then we played Petanque – which is boules. Jonny beat me (although narrowly).

Then it was on to the ‘jumping pillow’. Which is exactly what it says. A huge, pillow shaped, trampoline type thing. We have seen these at other campsites before although none as big as this one. While in the office hiring the boules, Jonny enquired… “See the jumping pillow…” The woman smiled. Jonny asked… “Is it just for children??????????” The woman laughed. “Absolutely not, but be careful! Children never hurt themselves on it. Adults do!”

Jumping Jill

So we were off! We spent a while jumping about (I think we scared most of the children away) and had some jumping and running races.

Then it was time for a swim. There is a lovely outdoor pool here and even a little shallow hot pool, so I spent most of the time there!

So all in all, we have had a very nice day. Jonny is sitting in the sun reading, I’m typing this and then we’re doing to cook some dinner! Busy, busy!!!

Jill

A lot of hot water

Warning…this is a very long post, I kinda lost the run of myself!

 

Hi kids, it’s post time again.

 

Last time we wrote we had just arrived in Rotorua and started adjusting to the smell. I can’t really say that we have completely come to terms with the it but its getting better or should I say we’re noticing it less.

 

Yesterday we headed into town in the morning to the local information centre or i-site as they call them to see what was the best way to spend our time here. Having been suitably informed we headed off to Skyline Luge on the outskirts of the city. Here you take a gondola ride up to the top of a very big hill/mountain and from there take your pick of one of three tracks (scenic, intermediate or advanced) to hurtle down on a luge. Lots of fun!

 

Now the luge for those of you who haven’t seen one before is basically a tea tray with wheels and handle bars to steer your way round corners. This also doubles as the brake if you pull it towards you but that’s not the point because you’ll only go slower then!!

 

After lunch we headed back into town and had a look around Government Gardens. Lots of outdoor bowling greens, croquet lawns and rose gardens. Not forgetting a few steaming pools of water dotted about the place. It’s also the home of the Blue Baths, an old public bath house which is now partly a museum but still has one outdoor pool you can go for a swim in. Interesting fact – the baths were apparently the first place in the world that allowed men and women to use the same swimming pool back in the 30’s when it first opened.

 

We then took a wander round to the Polynesian Spa, here you can take a dip in some genuine volcanic mud or have hot stones put on – not why you would pay for that sort of torture!?! We decided seeing as we had such a hard day’s sightseeing we needed a dip in a hot pool. We got one with of view of Lake Rotorua, it was roasting! Sadly you’re only allowed to stay in it for half an hour….

 

So onto to today – we spent most of the day at Te Puia, a geothermal park and Maori cultural centre type place. Here we got to see lots steaming holes in the ground, a cooking pool (a large hole with boiling water bubbling away in it) and lots more. We took a guided tour where a local Maori woman showed us around and told us lots about the maori way of life, customs and beliefs. Highlights of the tour included – a huge lake of boiling mud, a traditional maori village, the Kiwi house where got to see an actual kiwi (not the fruit, the bird!) and last but not least the Pohutu Geyser and the smaller Prince of Wales Geyser beside it. We had to sit and wait a wee while for it to start doing its thing but it’s pretty impressive. Pohutu shoots water about 20 metres into the air for about 20 minutes! An added bonus was watching a whole gaggle of Japanese tourists run about trying to get their photos taken in front of the geyser, turns out there are a lot of combinations a family of Japanese people can have their photo taken in!!!

 

We also got to see a cultural performance in the ‘meeting house’ at the centre of the park. This involved lots of traditional dances and song including the men doing the Haka – a dance used to scare of enemies before a battle, now mostly used to scare of the opposition rugby team before the All Blacks play. One of us tourists was picked to be our chief for the day. He had to accept a leaf from one of the local warriors as a sign that we came in peace and then greet all the male warriors with a handshake while touching noses twice. Unfortunately I wasn’t picked so I missed out on the opportunity to get up close and personal with these particular Maoris.

 

In other news we got our flat tyre replaced at ‘The Tyre General’. We are now back to a full compliment of five tyres and the general even had time to shine up the sides of all the other wheels so you might think they were all new, if you don’t look at them for to long.

 

We head in the general direction of Lake Taupo tomorrow not sure yet what we’ll find there apart from a whole load of fresh water.

 

Jonny

Maori dancing

Rotorua and Gondola

A hobbits tale

Yesterday, we headed off for Hot Water Beach. This is a beach, where, when you dig down into the sand, hot water comes up through it! And when they say hot, they mean it. We arrived just as the tide was starting to come in (you need to be there at low tide) so there was one main spot of ‘hot water’ and other people had dug a huge pool that loads of people were sitting in. But as the tide came in, the cold water came in too. It was pretty cool though, sitting in hot water on a cold beach (the weather hasn’t been great all weekend)

Digging

We spent the rest of yesterday driving round the Coromandel peninsula and found a lovely beach where we stopped for lunch and had a walk.

Today was a bit too exciting! We headed off this morning, in the rain, to our next stop – Rotorua. Along the road, we heard a funny noise and pulled over to investigate. Turned out one of our back tyres was flat! So, in the rain, Jonny changed the tyre. I ably assisted him as you can imagine…by watching! We later found out that in the small print in our hire agreement it says we have to replace damaged tyres ourselves. Typical!

Our next stop was Matamata. Home of Hobbiton! We booked the tour and a bus took us out to the sheep farm that was used as the set for the shire in the Lord of the Rings films. We weren’t expecting much, as the leaflet showed a picture of one hobbit hole, and a lot about sheep. And the weather was a bit depressing, but we set off anyway. And it was excellent!

Spot The Hobbits...

The tour guide/bus driver started off by giving us a lecture on safety – basically don’t slip on the wet grass. We were all looking around and taking photos and the next thing that happened was a girl behind us fell and wrecked her ankle! We heard a huge crack, and thought she had broken it, but it turned out she had fallen on her bottle of water! So she spent the rest of the tour sitting in the bus waiting for everyone to finish!

We got to see all around what is left of the set and it was really great seeing it all, and hearing all about filming etc. Hearing stories like how Peter Jackson insisted on bringing apple trees (because they were the right size), removing the apples and wiring plums to the branches, because the book mentions the hobbit children sitting under plum trees! And how they bought an oak tree, cut it up, transported it to the site, put it back together and attached 250,000 fake leaves (because the tree had obviously died during this ordeal) all for 11 seconds of footage!

So we really enjoyed that and it was well worth the trip. Seeing as it was on a sheep farm (with 12,000 sheep) the trip was rounded off with the chance to watch a sheep being sheared, and to bottle-feed a lamb!

We arrived in Rotorua late this afternoon to be greeted with the smell of sulpher and clouds of steam rising everywhere from all the geothermal goings on. So we are in a camp site that is guaranteed to be free of the smell! Tomorrow, we’re going to find out what all the fuss is about. There are millions of things to do here, so we’ll just have to pick a few!

The Auckland Factor.

We don’t like Auckland! We have been there twice now. And twice it has rained!

 

 

We are now in a camp site called Waihi Beach, at the bottom of the Coromandel Peninsula, home of hot water beach, where we hope to go tomorrow, so more about that then.

We left Matakohe and drove to Auckland (where it rained, if I haven’t mentioned that already). We spent the afternoon there in Kelly Tarlton’s Underwater World (or something like that) which was an acquarium type place, that was actually pretty impressive. A ’snowcat’ taking you through the ‘Antarctic’ to see penguins, a conveyor belt type walkway through a glass tunnel with millions of fish and sharks, and some mad lobsters, eels, and other freaky things! Just the way to spend a rainy afternoon! They also had a ’30 second’ test – to see if you could keep your hand in water the temperature it is in the Antarctic for 30 seconds. I managed 5!!! Jonny however managed the full 30 seconds! And couldn’t feel his hand for a while afterwards!

A fishy experience

We met up with Wayne (Jonny’s brother-in-law) last night as he was up in Auckland and he took us out for dinner. We returned the favour by making him tea in our spaceship. Not a fair exchange I think!

This morning, we got talking to the people in the camper van next to us. Turns out they were leaving today, so they gave us all the food etc they had left over! Bread, milk, sugar, butter, and best of all … half a box of red wine! So we packed up and headed on early this morning. It’s a bank holiday weekend here (labour day) and we were warned that the traffic might be bad. The weather was also to be bad, but it has been fine today…because we’re now out of Auckland!

So we’re at our camp site now, sitting outside in the (near) dark, trying to maintain an internet connection! It’s a lot busier here than we have seen at a camp site yet and there are millions of children running around chasing seagulls etc, so it’s quite entertaining!

'Gorge'-eous

We then took a drive through the town to a viewing point overlooking Martha’s goldmine! So that was quite impressive too! Big massive hole in the ground. (Didn’t find any gold though!)

So then it was back to the campsite to make some dinner!

Tomorrow we’re going to explore the peninsula and try out the infamous hot water beach!

Jill

 

Attack of the killer flies

So here we are again. We haven’t been getting on the internet as much, so you’ll just have to make do with every few days!

Last time we posted, we were in a campsite in Russell, in the Bay of Islands. On Monday, we headed North for another campsite, called Whatuwhiwhi (Jonny was so amused by this name we had to stay there!). It’s on the Karikari Peninsula. The weather was beautiful, so we spent most of the day at the beach. We ended up on a beach that was 18km long, and there were lots of people driving about. There were people there with a quad, with a kite flying off the back of it. We later discovered it was actually being used to fish with! Then back at the campsite we cooked steak! And potatoes…be proud of us!!

That was also the night we got attacked by killer flies! We spent too long getting our bed ready, with the door open and the light on. We were settled in, watching Die Hard with a Vengeance, when millions of tiny flies started appearing from everywhere. So we spent about 20 minutes with the light on, trying to swat them all. They still kept appearing. Finally, we gave up and got back to our dvd…and the battery ran out because the light was on for so long! Whoops!! We will learn from that and not leave the door open once it gets dark! Jonny keeps getting bitten! Flies don’t seem to like me!

Yesterday, we began our journey south, heading to Dargaville – down the west coast. We spent last night visiting Alison (Jonny’s sister’s mother-in-law…) so that was really nice. She took us around some of the local sites, and fed us! We rounded off the night watching coronation street and (the NZ version of) Who wants to be a millionaire! It was really nice being in a house, watching normal TV!

Yesterday on the way down, we visited the Kauri forest – some huge huge trees! (the redwoods in Yosemite pale in comparison!!)

Today, we started working our way back towards Auckland and ended up in Matakohe – and we visited the Kauri museum. It’s all about the logging industry, the people who were involved in it, as well as the Kauri trees themselves. We’re staying in a campsite near there. We cooked, and then Jonny taught me how to play blackjack! (It’s like we’re in Las Vegas again!)

Sittin' in a big tree!

Tomorrow, we’re heading to Auckland and from there, who knows!

Last cheese for miles

Bay of Islands

So today we made our way further north and ended up in a little place called Russell in the Bay of Islands. It took us about three hours to get here which included a car ferry ride to get across to the peninsula that the town is on. We came across a few strange signs along the road one of which declared that we had passed the last cheese for miles, after taking this information on board we decided to forge ahead without a decent supply of cheese.

We set up camp and made ourselves some lunch then headed off exploring. The area round here is beautiful with lots of sandy beaches and funnily enough islands dotted about the place. We spent sometime at a beach called Long Beach where we dipped our toes in the water but decided it was too cold for a swim. Then headed on a bit further where we found a little cove all to ourselves, I think it was called Whatiki Bay. A short walk from here we found a flagpole at the top of a hill which the plaque said had something to do with the treaty between the Maoris and the British back in the day and had been cut down a whole load of times by some disgruntled party or another.

So back at camp we set about cooking some dinner. We’re starting to get the hang of this campervan life, check out the photo below.

Cooking in the spaceship!

Jill is helping too, she just happened to be behind the camera at this point.

Until next time……..

Jonny

Virgo has landed

Since our last post, we have picked up our spaceship. It’s called Virgo.

Virgo

Friday, by all accounts, was a horrible day. We tried (and failed) to stay awake until night time. We spent the afternoon in the city centre, having a look around some shops, but we weren’t fit for much else!

Yesterday, we picked up the camper van, so that took a while, by the time we were shown how everything works. All the spaceships have names, all sci-fi or space themed – ours is virgo. We also saw Luke, Padwan, and Sabre.

We headed North out of Auckland and made a stop for some supplies. Not having any real idea where we were headed, we stopped at a tourist information centre in a town called Warkworth and picked up some leaflets and maps.

At this point, we decided just to stay around there and not head any further, so we headed to a recommended campsite – called Sandspit, on the coast. So that’s where we are now.

We spent the rest of yesterday relaxing and sorting out our stuff. Jonny is in his element – he spent the afternoon tidying and sorting out our suitcases (the obsessive compulsive in him is loving the need to be tidy) and I sat in the sun and read my book. So everyone was happy! We even managed to cook on our gas stove!

Jill and Donald

We finished off the day watching an episode of house on the wee DVD player in the camper van. (Background: in the summer we decided we needed a new show to watch and, knowing nothing about it, bought the first 3 series of house…and we love it! Before we left, we had watched series 1 and half of series 2, and, knowing we would have a dvd player, brought the other discs with us! So it’s like being at home again! Except we’re basically sleeping in a car!!)

So that’s where we’re up to now and we’re heading north to the Bay of Islands.

Time Travel

So we have arrived in New Zealand. Last time we posted was on our last night in America. We left the following morning and drove down the coast to the airport, arriving there mid-afternoon, where we said goodbye to our car.

We spent around 6 hours in the airport (as we were very early, and then our flight was delayed by 1.5 hours) although it passed by quickly enough. The terminal we were in was pretty rubbish – hardly any shops or places to eat (we were expecting another Heathrow!). Turns out they had to fix the engine on the plane which was why were were delayed. The pilot had a very upsetting habit of sharing everything with us – so we knew exactly what was going wrong and what could go wrong! Thankfully nothing did though!

The overnight flight was pretty uneventful. 12 hours of sleeping, eating and watching films. We were lucky enough though to have a row of 4 seats to ourselves so we had plenty of room to stretch out and sleep!

We arrived in Auckland at 7.30am – Friday (we lost a day in the process, and are now 12 hours ahead of home rather than 8 hours behind. It hurts my head to think about it!!) and the immigration process was infinitely less slow and painful than it was in New York. We did however have to declare our walking boots and have them checked, as we had ‘been in a forest’ (we had to tick that box on a list of unacceptable activities!)

The exciting news is that I can spend 6 months here. Jonny can only spend 3! (I think we’ll be ok with 6 weeks though). It’s all because I have a decent, British passport, while Jonny has an inferior Irish one! (And we’re now in a country that has the union jack as part of the flag!)

We are currently sitting in the Central Backpackers Hostel in Auckland waiting for our room to be cleaned. All we have established so far is that we are not, nor are ever likely to be backpackers! We look very out of place wheeling our suitcases around! And we’re not wearing flip flops!

Also…my impressions of New Zealand so far are that it is wet and grey and looks remarkably like NI. Hopefully after some sleep I’ll feel a bit better about the whole thing!

So the rest of the day is going to be filling ourselves with caffeine and trying to stay awake until tonight! Which for us, is actually last night?!?!?!?

Tomorrow, the real fun will begin when we pick up our spaceship! We are back to driving on the proper side of the road and we’re now ‘going it alone’ without the help of the sat nav! So it could all be very interesting!!!

(No photos yet, but not sure anyone would want to see what we look like at the minute anyway! It’s not good!!!)

Jill

Driving down the 101

Today saw us leave San Francisco and start the journey south towards LA. We took route 101, the Pacific Highway. We ended up stopping in a town called Pismo Beach for the night. Funnily enough this town is beside the sea with some beautiful beachs dotted about the place. The drive took us about four & half hours and took in a lot vegetable crops alongside the road, many of which were being picked by gangs of Mexicans.

the pool

We ended up staying in a Quality Inn with a heated outdoor pool and massive jacuzzi with waterfalls in it. Nice and relaxing in the sunshine! Later on we headed round to a local laundromat to do some laundry as tonight we had to pack everything up for heading to New Zealand. As for the packing it has went surprisingly well so far with our stuff all fitting back into the bags and still a bit of room left over.

That just leaves us with one day left in the states! Its going to be strange leaving after 4 weeks here but also exciting as we get to start all over again in a new place. We have to drop the car off at the airport by 5pm and then our flight is supposed to leave at 9pm tomorrow night. The fun part is we won’t arrive in New Zealand until 6am Friday morning their time, lossing a whole day is going to fry my head.

Hopefully you have been enjoying our blogging as we’ve travelled across the USA. We’ve been able to update it a lot more than we originally thought with internet access being quite easy to get here. Not sure how its going to work out in NZ but we’ll try our best to regularly update you.

Chat to you all again in the southern hemisphere!

Jonny