White Around The World

From the Bay of Islands I travelled further north to Kaitia, the main town in the far north of NZ. Stayed in a very nice hostel here for a few days. Did a very good day trip to Cape Reigna, the most notherly point of the country, stopping at several places on the way. One of the main parts of the trip was a bus ride up 90 mile beach, where we only just made it to the top of the beach as the tide was coming in. Also had chance to do a bit of sledging down sand dunes, which was good fun as I'm going to miss out on Winter this year and the sledges actually went suprisingly fast. Although days later I was still trying to get all the sand out of my clothes. Had a nice walk to the lighthouse at the end of the cape, where you could see where thye Pacific Ocean and Tasman Sea meet. On the way back down the peninsula we stopped at a very nice white sandy beach, and an amazing ice cream shop.

Kaitia itself was a bit of a strange place and not really organised for tourists despite there being a lot of things to see in the area. I tried to hire a bike or car for a day but couldn't get either so I was stuck in the town. It did have a small museum which had some quite interesting local history. Other than there were a few shops but they all closed for the afternoon, so I was stuck at the hostel for the rest of the day.

From Kaitia I went back down to Auckland, where I've spent the last few days, although I haven't actually spent a lot of time in the city. On New Years Eve I went to Wiheke Island, which is about 45minutes away by boat. The island is one of the biggest in the area and was more developed than I was expecting, and seemed to be the place to go to celebrate new years eve as it was really busy. I did a tour of the island in the morning. It has a lot of nice beaches, vinyards and is obviously the place for New Zealand multi millionaires to have a second home. Lots of huge designer homes that they travel to on their private yachts or helicopters. In the afternoon I did a nice coastal walk and a much needed swim at the beach as the weather has been really hot again the last few days.

I also spent a day going out to Rangitoto Island, a smaller uninhabited island that only started forming when a volcano errupted there 600 years ago. Was an interesting walk up to the crater, another good geography lesson for me.

To see in the new year I went to the main square in the city centre where there were a few bands playing, none of which I had heard of and none of them were actually very good, so I went to the pub next door instead. At midnight there were fireworks from the sky tower, so quite a normal new year really.

The next day I did the coast to coast walk, walking from one side of NZ to the other, but its only 16km long. Was a good way to see a lot of different areas of the city, which is actually really nice when you got out of the main city centre which I think is a bit run down. Also stopped off at the museum and saw a really interesting exhibition about Charles Darwin and evolution. He went to a lot of places in Chile and Argentina that I'm thinking of going to and its made me want to go to the Galapagos as well.

I'm flying to Chie this afternoon, so excited about that now. But I've loved being back in New Zealand as its just such a varied country and perfect for all outdoor activities.

The next day i got the bus to Paihia, a nice little beach town in the far north of NZ. Staying in another nice hostel near the beach, so spent the rest of the day making the most of the good weather on the beach.

On Christmas Eve I went to Waitangi, where the Maoris and the Brits signed the Treaty which is supposed to be the founding of NZ. Theres a good museum at the Treaty House and its set in nice grounds by the sea. In the afternoon I continued with my plan of not doing much over Christmas and went to the beach again. Probably sounds bad that I feel like a need a holiday from travelling. In the evening there was a carol singing thing down by the beach. Doesn't really seem right having carols outside in the sun, I'm dreaming of a white christmas just didn't seem very appropriate. But it was still better than the hip hop version of Away in a Manger.

Unfortunatly the plan for Christmas day at the beach didn't quite work out because of the weather, it turned into a normal wet Christmas day. Wasn't too bad in the morning so I still went to the beach, went swimming and had lunch at the beach. But in the afternoon it rained hard so I spent the rest of the day at the hostel, which wasn't too bad as it has its bar.

On Boxing Day the waether changed again, was bright and sunny with a good breeze, perfect as I'd booked to go sailing on a tall ship. This was a really good day, helped out a bit with the sails on the ship, sailed out around the bay. Went onto an island for a swim and a BBQ lunch and had good fun jumping into the sea by swinging from a rope attached to the mast. On the way back to the mainland I put on harnesses and climbed out onto the front of the boat which was good fun in the waves as the boat was going quite fast.

So its been a good Christmas, very different from being bck at home. Today I'm heading further north, to a place calld Kaitiai for a few days.

From Rotorua I got the bus to Thames, a small town on the Coromandel Peninsula, an area or NZ I hadn't been to before so it was good to be going somewhere new. Its a strange place, doesn't look like its changed much since about 1950. I stayed in a small hostel which compared to the rest of the town was suprisingly modern, must have been decorated in about 1970.

The next day I did a walk called The Pinnacles. It was a good walk up through a forest, with a steep section at the top which had ladders fixed to the rock, similar to via feratta in the Dolomites. I was lucky with the weather, made it to the top before the clouds came down and made it back to the hostel just before it started raining.nonetheless and the clouds kept away for us to have a good view from the top.

The next day I wasn't getting the bus until the afternoon so had the morning to explore what little there is to do in Thames. Borrowed an ancient bike for the hostel and cycled to the “Butterfly Gardens”, which only seemed to have about 6 species of butterfly all imported from Asia. After that I had an interesting walk. Most of the descriptions of walks in NZ make them sound really difficult, say you need loads of gear, good boots and will take hours longer than they actually do, so I ignored the description for this walk and set off in sandles. Unfortunatly for once the description had been right, no proper paths, a very muddy track up a steep hill. And when the instructions said follow the stream back down the hill, I hadn't thought it would literally mean that you hade to wade down the stream. But I made it back into the town in time to dry off a bit before getting the bus tro Whitianga, another small town further up the peninsula. Stayed here for a few days in a very nice hostel right on the beach.

The next day I went for a biot of a walk along the coast stopping off at some very nice beaches as the weather was very good. Then the next day I hired a bike and cycled about 20km to Hotwater beach. Unfortunatly the weather had changed and it was puring with rain so by the time I got to the beach I wass soaked. But that didn't matter too much as when you dig a hole in the sand at this beach it fills up with hot water, so you can dig your own spa pool. In some places the water is hot enough to burn you. So this was a bit of a strange experiance. Despite the pouring rain, the beach was still really busy and there were loads of people in waterproofs and with umbrellas trying to dig holes without them getting filled up with seawater.

The next day I just got the bus to Auckland where i stopped off on my way further north

I've continued travelling north and have spent the last week or so in North Island. I had a couple of days in Wellington seeing some of the sites there, then I travelled up to Tongariro in central north island. Here I spent 3 days doing another one of the great walks, called the Nothern Circuit. Again it was completly different from anyewhere else I've been in NZ as the walk was up around 3 volcanoes. The landscape was so varied it made for an interesting few days and was a good geology lesson for me. The first day of the walk went up one of the volcanoes, which still had snow on it, across craters, past lakes and vents of hydrogen sulphide. The second day was spent walking across the kind of landscape you would imagine is on the moon, dry, dusty land with strange shaped rock formations. The final day was through forest, up to more crater lakes and then followed a river and waterfalls to the end. The weather could have been better but it was still a really good walk.

From there I've travelled up to Rotorua, a town which is actually built in an ancient volcanic crater. Theres still a lot of thermal activity here, the town stinks of sulpher because of it but I've got used to that quickly. Today i've had a busy day doing a lot of the tourist things. I went to see an area of hot springs and lakes, where the hottest is apparently over 100'C. Decided to have a mud bath, followed by a cold shower and a natural spa. Suppossed to be very good for you, I'm not convinced it's had much of an effect but I enjoyed it. Also tried a bit of Maori wood carving, which just prooved to me good some of there art is as it was really difficult. Alkso went to the museum, which was eally interesting and I learnt a lot about the area.

Moving on again tomorrow, further north to Corromandel.

From being snowed in just a week earlier it was a bit of a change to be lying on a beach enjoying the sun. After leaving Wanaka I spent a few days travelling up the West Coast to the Abel Tasman National Park, stopping on the way at Franz Josef to see the glacier. Although one of New Zealnds great walks follows the coast through the Abel Tasman, I decided to have a change from walking and went on a 3 day sea-kayaking trip. Its something I hadn't tried before but would definitely try again. On the first day of the trip there were 6 of us kayaking with our guide Brad. He taught us all the basics then we set off paddleing along the caost for a few hours. It was a perfect day for it, no wind, a calm sea and clear skies so it gave us chance to get used to the kayaking and enjoy the sun. We stopped off at a couple of nice beaches on the way to Anchorage Bay where we camped for the night. Here there was a great beach for sunbathing, swimming and chance to walk part of the great walk track. That evening we found that not only was Brad an experianced kayaker but he was also a good cook. We were expecting normal camping food, dehydrated ready made meals etc but he made a very nice pasta dish and even a pavlova, never had such good food while camping before.

The second day, the wind had picked up and we weren't sure if we were going to be able to go anywhere, but Brad decided we should start out and turn back if it got too bad. It was quite sheltered in the bay but once we got out a bit further the sea was very rough and certainly put our new kayaking skills to the test. After a couple of hours we decided to try and land at Bark Bay, a bit short of the place we had intended to reach. But as we came into land there Brad decided it was too dangerous because of the waves, so we went back down the coast a little way to a more sheltered beach. After stopping there for a bit we decided to try going to Bark Bay again. The sea was stilll very rough but this time we made it. After setting up camp here we decided to try going for an afternoon paddle. Once we had got out of the bay the waves were soon even bigger than earlier, now about 2m high, so this made for a couple of hours of exciting paddling, tiring but very good fun. So despite the weather we had a really good day, even though a lot of other groups we met hadn't managed to do any kayaking at all.

On the third day we had a long days paddleing planned, back to where we had started. Luckily the sea was a bit calmer so we were able to get more than half way back in the morning. We were a bit disappointed not to have been able to paddle as far as the marine reserve the day before, but we were lucky this morning and saw sealions and dolphins. Had a very nice lunch break on an empty beach before having an easy paddle back to the start. So it was a nice end to another really good trip.