North Island Road Trip

This post coming to you live from… well, from Waiheke Island once more, BUT it is not about Waiheke. As the title may clue you in, this post will cover all my shenanigans and experiences from my 10-day road trip around the North Island of New Zealand. As per usual on a vacation with a time limit one does not see everything. But don’t you worry because we saw lots!

Now, you may be wondering when I say ‘We’ who it is that I am talking about. For this story to make sense I’ll have to tell you another story. It begins about 3 weeks before leaving on my road trip when I was staying at my friend’s neighbors house for about 5 days. I could only stay for those couple of days because this lovely scottish couple had another scottish couple coming to visit them. After ‘moving out’ I came over to say hi to their new friends.  We all hung out over the next couple of days and we became good friends (Rob & Laura ((the couple who’s house I stayed in)) and Martin & Karen ((the visiting scottish couple)) ).

Just imagine for a second how hard it could be sometimes to understand four scottish people who are old friends and who had been drinking. We had some good laughs when I had to double check that they were still speaking english.  One such slightly inebriated  night Martin and Karen came knock knocking knocking on my door and declared that I should quit my job and come with them on this road trip. I think that they expected me to put up more of a fight, or protest, or at least some stammering about how I couldn’t/shouldn’t leave my place of income – but I quickly answered – sounds great, when do we leave? Tuesday, they said. (It was Sunday night). Sounds good to me, I’ll work it out with my boss. The only problem came when I still needed to work tuesday unfortunately. Probably because I had become just too amazing making salads in the kitchen and they actually were relying on me to be one of two people to man the kitchen that day. I know, you’re impressed – I could make you a mean antipasto plate.

The point being is that we ended up meeting in Auckland Wednesday, February 1st to depart on our road trip. There are quite a few traveler sites here in New Zealand. One in particular is called gumtree and on this site you can post and look for travel buddies. We all thought it would be a good idea to grab a 4th person and came across a lovely energetic french girl named Gaelle who lives in Montreal.  ‘We’ all rented a van and headed north to Cape Reinga which is the northern most point of New Zealand where the Tasman Ocean meets the Pacific Ocean.

We were there on a luckily calm day and the weather was absolutely gorgeous and stunning. In the picture below you will able to kind of see a swirling patch of waves in the middle of the really green patch of water. This is where the two ocean meet.

However our day at Cape Reinga didn’t start at the tip of the Island but on a bus with a tour guide who had some of the best one-liners I’ve ever heard.  The first stop of our day was to drive this rickety old bus down a long beach called 90-mile beach. And no, it’s not precisely 90-miles long but the name has a nice ring to it.

It is a beautiful beach indeed. We were on the bus and off the bus several times to take pictures and it was funny to see all the other buses with their tourists milling about in the middle of nowhere with their cameras a-flutter.

The next part of our day was to drive to some sand dunes that had formed in this area. Even though there is vegetation on this part of the North Island the narrowest part of the cape consists mostly of sand and New Zealanders brought in special types of plants and trees that can grow specifically on sand in order to help reinforce the land. When a bad storm comes this will help the area not to simply erode back into the ocean.  The sand dunes here are not as big as the ones in Colorado – but still get you out of breath when you climb to the top.  One of the reasons we chose this tour was because you don’t merely climb the dunes, but you toboggan down them. The bus comes equipped with plastic sleds and everyone gets one to try their hand at sand sledding.  All I can say is that it’s very fun and you end up with sand everywhere…

After sledding we went to the cape where I did a superb handstand to mark the occasion.

The next day we headed south to Rotorua, a land blessed with geothermal activity everywhere.  Here we had a very cool hostel complete with a bar, pool table and near everything. While the weather wasn’t the best in Rotorua we made the best of it. We followed a hiking trail to the top of a dormant volcano that had a steamy sulfer lake at the beginning of the trail head.

 We then trekked up the mountain to reach the peak. To our surprise there was a weather station at the top and a very nice man named Barry who sits at this peak all day long to watch for forrest fires in the summer. He has a 360 degree view of Rotorua and the surrounding valleys and lakes. Not a bad day job. He even takes your picture and adds it to his facebook page to track his visitors. He said I was only about the 5th person from the USA ever to visit.  Here is the group picture he took of us.

Introducing our North Island Players: (L-R) Martin (Scottish), Gaelle (French), Karen (Scottish), and Yours Truly

That afternoon, based on a locals advice, we turned down a lonely dirt road in search of a hot springs creek. We found a warm looking creek and followed it until it tumbled down a 8 foot waterfall and pooled into a perfectly acceptable swimming hole.

 It has a very unfortunate name – Kerosine Creek – maybe thats to keep the tourists out and I do feel like I’m letting this one out of the bag by saying this is also a must see. No better way to finish a hike than a soak in an even temperatured hot springs.

After finishing our soak we headed back to the hostel for a quick shower and change to head to the Maori Experience. As some of you might or might not know the indigenous tribes of New Zealand are known as the Maori. Pronounced, well how it reads – ma-or-ri, but said fast and correctly probably sounds like nothing you just tried to say out loud… The Maori were legendary for being fierce warriors and sustaining a great culture. However, the got a little too carried away when the gun was introduced to them and the weapon became the basis for starting huge tribal wars based on long time feuds that nearly wiped out the Maori population. They are now working to sustain their culture hand in hand with New Zealander’s. The Maori experience was a way to tell visiters about their culture and way of life. We were picked up on a bus and each bus picks a leader for we were to be the visiting tribes from across the lake. They then great you with their fiercest warriors to challenge you, the ‘visiting tribes’, to see if you come in peace. They put on an incredibly ferocious show until you place a leaf at their feet (at the proper time of course) and then greet you by touching noses. They only do this with the leader, and even though it is part of a show it is still a very moving gesture. It would be an incredible thing to see happen organically.

We then were led through the village to see different aspects of maori life from weaving using the flax plant or poi spinning or the legendary Haka dance. The Haka is the dance that the entire village would do before battle in order to intimidate the opponent. It is also the dance that the NZ All Blacks have adopted to do before every game. I’m pretty sure every New Zealander inherently knows this chant. We then had a bit of a show exhibiting more aspects of their culture and then had a very large meal. Our bus driver on the way home had us sing songs that were from our countries because he had “entertained us all the way there”. This was true – he was quite hilarious. He even got us to sing she’ll be coming around the mountain when she comes while lapping a round-a-bout about six times.

The next day we had one more activity to complete in Rotorua that everyone was telling us to do. We went Zorbing. Yes Zorbing. It is a real thing invented by New Zealander’s (of course). What the hell is Zorbing you may be thinking. Think of a 15ft tall inflatable ball with another ball suspended in the middle. Now, place that ball on top of a large hill and then place yourself in that ball with some water. Then you have someone push you down that hill. Equals Zorbing.  It is by far the most ridiculous thing I have ever done because you are truly a human pinball! There are three options that you can choose from. One – the straight/dry option: You are placed in a chair within a zorb fully strapped in so when the ball rolls you tumble with it in a straight line down the hill. Two: sit inside the zorb with just a little bit of water and maybe a friend or two heading straight down the hill so you stay upright but slip and slide around the inside. Three (the one I picked): where you are inside the zorb with some water and you roll down a zig zag track. Hence – human pin ball. I don’t think I’ve ever laughed more in my life. Here are some pictures to help out your imagination.

After Zorbing we drove another hour south to Lake Taupo. This is a large lake situated in another volcanic. slightly higher mountainous region. At the end of the day it really looked like a spitting version of Lake Tahoe where I lived in California. It is known as one of the adventure capitals of the North Island. The things to do there were to go white water rafting, skydiving and hiking. I was able to accomplish 2 out of 3. I did a 15,000 foot skydiving jump (attached to an instructor like a baby). It was an absolutely incredible experience you can almost barely describe it. It’s almost like your flying – probably one of the closest things you can do to come to that feeling – even though you are RAPIDLY falling towards the earth. Luckily you have someone strapped to your back who has done this at least 10,000 times and probably 8 times that day. We did have to wait around a day for better weather, but let me tell you it was absolutely worth it. All of us girls were on the edge of our seats with excitement.

That evening the sky celebrated our being alive by an absolutely incredible sunset.

The next day the french girl and I woke up at 5am to take a bus to the start of the Tongariro Crossing. This is a popular day hike in New Zealand across a volcano mountain range.  The volcano peak is a sacred Maori spot as well as the infamous Mt Doom featured in the Lord of the Rings Trilogy. It was a fantastic and challenging day hike with rewarding views. Please enjoy:

Gorgeous eh?

The next day drove towards the Waitomo Caves to partake in Black Water Rafting. This is where you go into an underground cave system with glow worms on the ceilings. We picked the tour where you don’t just stroll along a walk way. We donned a full wet suit with a coat and boats and a helmet with a head lamp. You grab your innertube and follow your guides into the caves trekking through streams, jumping off (smallish) waterfalls and floating along following the bioluminescent worms. They look like stars in the dark. It was a very cool experience and a great way to spend our last day on the road trip.

To sum up you could say that we didn’t really do too much and saw very little…. I hope you all enjoyed this session. Until next time.