Anyone for pancakes?

Day 11 Nelson to Hokitika

Our hopes that our tyre was fine were dashed as it had gone flat over night so we pumped it up again, knowing that it would at least last the day's driving. Our road trip continued closely following the western coast of the South Island, stopping by Cape Foulwind, then from there to Pancake Rocks, which were quite impressive to see. Apparently scientists still don't know why the rocks have formed in this unusual way.

One thing we have noticed all over New Zealand is the amount of road works, not a day has passed where we haven't been stopped multiple times by road maintenance.

The weather has been surprisingly pleasant but the forecast for the next two days was pretty grim. We debated pushing on to see Hokitika Gorge this evening while the weather was still good but decided instead to get an early start the next day.

As the car tyre was going to be a pain if we didn't do something about it, M swapped it for the unused and fully inflated spare in the boot. It was actually quite surprising that we would pick up a rental car in such a condition. 

Hokitika beach is known for it's driftwood, and there was lots of it around on the dark grey sand. The sunset that evening was also quite a good one, with lots of people trying to get the perfect photo.

Ferry interesting

Day 10 Wellington to Nelson

The ferry over to the South Island was due to leave at 9am but check in closed at 7.45 so we arrived at the terminal at 7.15am. We could have arrived a little later but we prefer to have no stress and time up our sleeve for check ins.

The ferry trip was about three hours and we had treated ourselves to a lounge upgrade with comfy window seats. It was a beautiful day for a trip on the sea with blue sky and very little wind.

We picked up our new rental car and discovered not long after leaving town that we had a flat tyre. Not something we would normally check on a newly picked up rental. We pulled into a servo and pumped it up, crossed our fingers and pushed on to Nelson.

Nelson was a lot larger than we expected. K found a ceramic gallery with a great selection of different artists and proceeded to spend good money on dirt that had been shaped, painted and heated up.

We found a quaint restaurant that hung over the water for a drink while we watched some inspiring ocean swimmers in their groups training in the cold water.

Up Mt VIc

Day 9 Wellington 

An easy day off from road tripping today with a look around Wellington Harbour then a short drive up to the Mount Victoria lookout to get an idea of how the city of Wellington was situated around a number of mountains and harbours.

The majority of car rental companies in NZ don't allow cars to be taken between the North and South islands, the idea is that you drop your car off on one side and pick up (a nice clean) new one on the other side. As we didn't really need our car any more today we decided to return it a day early so we had one less thing to worry about and one less chance of delays before our trip over to Picton the next day. 

Antarctic blast

Day 8 Taupo to Wellington 

A long drive today as we decided to head to Wellington via Whanganui, as K had found a ceramic museum she wanted to check out that had around 4000 pieces by predominantly New Zealand potters. There were some stunningly beautiful pieces of work but as this was a museum they weren't for sale. 

While K did that M wandered around the town and along the Whanganui River (New Zealand's longest navigable waterway) where some old paddle steamers were docked.

It was close to 6pm when we arrived in Wellington, where we knew we had left the warm weather of the last week behind as we endured an Antarctic blast of wind while walking along the waterfront.

More driving than necessary

Day 7 Rotorua to Taupo

We had underestimated how popular Hobbiton was and being low/shoulder season we thought we'd be able to rock up when it suited us. A couple of days ago though we thought we should test this theory, only to find out all places were booked out online. K phoned to see if there was any leeway or standby tickets, and was told we could book an 11am visit on Monday taking a bus from and returning to Matamata. Why we couldn't just drive directly to Hobbiton and pick up the tour there was never made clear, but as this was our only option we hit the road early and backtracked the hour's drive to Matamata to get the bus.

The Hobbiton site was much better than we expected with lots of hobbit homes and interesting facts about the construction and movie making process. A thoroughly delightful, pretty set and definitely worth a visit.

Back to Matamata by bus, then into the car to hightail it south again to try and make it to Orakei Korako Geothermal Park before the last boat of the day left at 4pm. We arrived with a minute to spare and spent the next hour on the trail around the bubbling hot water sulphur, mud pools and geysers waiting to erupt, another nice and worthwhile visit. 

From there it was on to our final destination for the night, Taupo. Rotorua to Taupo by car is usually just an hour or so, but today because of our poor planning we'd had at least three hours on the road!

Getting into hot water

 Day 6 Whitianga to Rotorua

Our first stop for the day was Hot Water Beach, a place where if you dig into the sand in the right spot (hiring a shovel if needed) you can find hot water. We were told we had arrived too early as the tidal conditions meant it wouldn't be possible until around 1pm, in about two hours. However these facts didn't seem to concern some tourists who parted with $10 for their shovel and headed to the beach.

We walked up to a point where a number of people were standing still in the shallows. On asking what they were doing, we were told that you just needed to wriggle your feet in the sand, you'd sink in a bit and find some warmth. Sure enough within a minute our feet had gone from warm to so hot we needed to yank them out before they were scalded!

From there we continued further south along the Peninsula, through the large town of Tauranga and a kiwi fruit growing area before arriving in Rotorua. We visited the Redwood sky walk (with Californian redwoods, not native NZ trees) learning about the timber history and culture in this part of the world.

Windy coastal drive

 Day 5 - Auckland to Whitianga 

After a night in the suburbs of Auckland, we took a winding road trip through Thames and along the coast of the Coromandel Peninsula to finish in the lovely coastal town of Whitianga, a town that seems on the verge of being "discovered" but currently still in delightful limbo, with a nice boat harbour, as well as some decent restaurants.

Welcome to our house

 Day 4 - Paihia to Auckland via Opononi

We had always planned to visit Manea Footprints of Kupe in Opononi, a Maori cultural museum that had some good reviews, but in our usual fashion we only looked into things like ticketing last night over dinner, finding that there were only two visiting times available, 10am and 1pm.

As the tour went for 75 minutes and we had a four hour drive after that to reach Auckland we went for the 10am slot, which meant we needed to be on the road by 8.30, a little earlier than we would have liked.

We arrived in Opononi to discover that we should also have checked the weather forecast for the west coast. We had left a pleasant morning with a forecast of low 20s to arrive in cold, wet and windy weather.

The tour consisted of an informative and entertaining understanding of the Maoris' arrival in New Zealand from across the seas, led by the forefather Kupe. It was a lovely way of educating and keeping the Maori language and stories alive.

The long drive along the west coast was broken up with some stops along the way for some short nature walks to see some big kauri pines, and a lunch stop at Dargaville, a town that seemed frozen in the past. It was a decent size but appeared a little run down, with old buildings and residents to match.

To the top of the top

 Day 3 - Paihia to Cape Reinga (return)

Today we did a six hour round trip to Cape Reinga at the northern tip of the North Island. Along the way we stopped off at some giant sand dunes that reminded us of Namibia, though we chose not to have a go at the sand boarding.

From there we travelled on to the cape, following the well made path the lighthouse, enjoying reading about the Maori history of the area along the way.

This place looks familiar?

 Day 2 - Orewa to Paihia

After a walk along the beach in Orewa followed by a nice coffee, we jumped back into the car and headed north to Paihia on the Bay of Islands. As we had visited the Bay of Islands before we didn't have any plans.

Once we arrived we decided to catch the ferry across the bay to the cute town of Russell. After walking for a while we realised we'd been there before, but as it was a lovely afternoon for a boat trip we felt we had done the right thing anyway.

What a year!

 Day 1 - Melbourne to Auckland

It's been an interesting year without much in the way of trips, so we decided to treat ourselves to a trip across the ditch before Christmas. A short flight of 3.5 hours is quicker than travelling to many places in Oz!

As we'd been to Auckland a few times before we decided to skip a stay in the city this time, collecting a rental car from the airport and heading north to the nice seaside town of Orewa for the night. We were pleasantly surprised to find the weather was warmer than home.