Firstly, travelling from north to south works better. The top of the North Island has green and gentle rolling hills that would not look out of place in the UK. The countryside is as beautiful as many places in the UK, but if you are from the UK there is a familiarity which means relatively it causes less of an impression compared the scenery further south. As one travels south, the green and rolling-ness is disrupted by the geothermal activities (grass does not seem to thrive around boiling mud pools and sulphur vents!) and even after the green returns, every view is dominated by an active volcano or a lake formed as a volcanic crater.

At the top of the South Island, as we journeyed in-land, the hills from being “pointy” in shape to having odd-shaped bumps which stuck out at all angles (sadly no photos!). Slowly the green and grassy bumps evolved into brown rocky outcrops, the verticals began to soar rather than merely tower and then gradually we were surrounded by proper rocky snow-capped mountains! I have described it here in a few sentences, but in reality it was a gradual change that we observed over 2-3 days of driving and simply could not be captured on (digital) film.

The other thing that was striking about the Southern Alps was how the flat the surrounding plains are and how quickly the mountains rise at the edges. While the elevation slowly increased as we travelled South, once we were on the plains the mountains seemed to rise up very sharply from the edges with no gentle foothills to obstruct your view of the mountains’ majesty.

• Auckland and Paihia
• Rotorua and Wellington
• Tongariro Alpine Crossing
• Taupo to Picton
• Queen Charlotte Track
• Abel Tasman and Kaikoura
• Mackenzie Country
• Doubtful Sound
• Catlins Coast and Akaroa

And that’s all folks – no more photos for this year!

Since Doubtful Sound can only be entered in two ways: the Tasman Sea, and via a road that connects with the western edge of Lake Manapouri, itself only accessible by water. Since the road is 20km long and has to reach an elevation of 680m to cross Wilmot Pass, just getting to Doubtful Sound was a beautiful journey in itself.

Our vessel, and home for the next 20 hours, was the “Fiordland Navigator”—a lovely medium-sized ship which could comfortably seat her 70 passengers in the saloon, and also had a forward observation lounge, lots of viewing space on deck and compact but sufficient quarters down below. Since Fiordland gets 7 metres of rain per year there was an infinite supply of free tea and coffee whenever you felt a bit cold, and great food—tasty and plentiful!

Our first afternoon on the Sound we had low cloud and some misty rain, but this just made the scenery all the more atmospheric: the cloud creates this amazing ghost-like/eerie atmosphere as the rainforest covered sides of the fjord rise up steeply from inky waters. Happily the rain stopped for long enough for us to take a close up look of the shore from some sea-kayaks (little one seater craft in flat calm waters, much more fun than the Abel Tasman). After kayaking we travelled all the way out to the Tasman Sea with the hope of seeing some wildlife which we duly did: seals, fiordland crested penguins, albatross and huge numbers of birds; but as we reached the sea the weather worsened and the misty rain became so thick that visibility dropped to practically nothing so we retreated to the saloon to play cards.

We moored for the night in some dead calm waters and walking about on deck after dark was amazing: there were giant black walls looming above us as the only light came from the partially obscured moon and the ship itself, but best of all was the silence—we were experiencing true wilderness!

The next morning was bright and clear: a blue sky with whisps of cloud which is apparently almost unheard of in Fiordland! After a fantastic breakfast we cruised round to another “arm” of the fjord which had 1000m high walls and water so still that it had almost perfect reflections. The Captain powered down the ship for a few minutes so we could savour the remoteness (and incredible variety of bird song) but then it was time to sail back to Deep Cove and reverse our earlier journey over Wilmot Pass and Lake Manapouri, back to “civilisation”.

First was a day hiking part of the Queen Charlotte Track. We started at Ship Cove, a picturesque spot which Captain Cook visited five times over the course of his three voyages to NZ. The area has never been farmed or forested so remains almost unchanged in appearance since Cook’s visit.

After five hours of walking through bush with fantastic views of the Queen Charlotte Sound (see photo), our return to Picton was via water taxi. This proved to be almost better than the walk as each of its three stops took us into another lush green bay lit up by sunshine sparkling off the clear water, and we even saw a pod of dusky dolphins playing in the sunshine! (Full photo album.)

Despite our long walk, the following morning we were due to be in Abel Tasman National Park so that evening we drove to Motueka. Abel Tasman is another coastal beauty spot, but unlike the QCT it has soft rock which leads to long golden sandy beaches and interesting rock formations around the headland.

Again we were taken out to one of the best bits of the park by watertaxi, but then our morning was spent sea kayaking–a good way to fully appreciate the coast line! We actually started the morning by kayaking off shore to a small island sea colony. This was unfortunately pretty dull, and the paddle back felt like a bit of a hard slog (especially when my paddling partner needed to rest every couple of strokes!) and I was glad when we pulled up onto a beach for lunch.

After lunch we set off for another walk through the bush. Unfortunately there were not quite enough viewpoints though and so we only caught fleeting glimpses of the sandy coves and turquoise lagoons below–we thought afterwards that perhaps a full day of kayaking would have been a better plan as in a way the QCT had been a more interesting walk, and also had fewer people and more birds, including some flightless Wekas which are unique to NZ!

We learned:
* 35 years ago the main industry in the area was sheep and fruit;
* the vines are extensively pruned to ensure very high quality (and this low grape yields);
* 85% of the wine is exported.

The last two explain why we found that even here, local wine cannot be purchased for under £8. In fact the reasonably priced wine here is the same as at home: Aussie and Chilean!

We visited five wineries, of which my favourite was “Spy Valley” (the name is due to the US listening post located in the same valley!) because as well as their cool name and morse code adorned labels, I really enjoyed all of their wines, from the sparkling white (codename “Echelon”) to the soft Merlot which is not easy to grow in this area but they produce anyway because the vinters are big Merlot fans themselves.

Here’s a photo of her about to board the plane, she even came back in one piece!

The previous day was hot and sunny in Taupo, so we rose at the evil hour of 5:40am to catch a bus to the trail heads thinking hard about things like sun cream and sun hats as we had heard the trail is quite exposed. The bus was pretty cold, but then it was 6:30am, but as we neared the trail head the bus driver warned us that the winds would be around 50kph at the summit and switched on the “acclimatisation” machine (i.e. opened all the windows!) and we realised that perhaps we had been concentrating on surviving the wrong end of the weather spectrum… Fortunately the bus was equipped with a portable hire shop for some amazing lightweight wind & waterproof jackets so we were able to top-up our weather protection.

The first part of the walk was pretty dull on account of the closed in mist and fine drizzle that prevented us from seeing the surrounding mountain ranges. At some point the plant life ended and was replaced by a landscape of amazing red and black “nobbly” rocks that really did make us feel we were climbing “The Devil’s Staircase”. There were some nice flat parts on boardwalks across marshy patches to provide a rest from the ascent, and while the misty rain spoiled the view (the tall cone-shaped Mount Ngauruhoe, aka Mount Doom, looming above us was completely hidden) and the wind was a bit cold, we were enjoying the walk.

During the next climb, the wind picked up and caused things to become decidedly chilly. The plant life also stopped again and the landscape began to look a lot like Mordor, dark/black volcanic rock broken only by some large white patches of frozen snow which had yet to melt. This part of the walk involved crossing a huge snow and ice-covered volcanic crater which was easy going–the cloud even lifted a little so at least we could appreciate the size of the crater.

The wind returned as we emerged from the crater, and began to pick up speed—it was no longer merely a chill factor, by the time we were half way up the next ridge the cross wind was making it difficult to walk in a straight line, and it was sufficiently strong to tear my snugly fitting baseball cap from my head and hurl it into the crater we were ascending. It was a sad moment as that cap was a souvenir from my trip to Canada and had accompanied me on all subsequent trips—Mt Doom had claimed its first victim of the day—but the force and bite of the wind meant there was no time to mourn, we had been promised that things would be better once we got over the summit so we had to press on.

As we came over the summit of the Red Crater, there was a majestic site of Emerald lakes glistening in sunshine below, but also one problem: since we were now at the summit (1886m), getting there involved traversing an exposed ridge without a rock wall on one side to prevent the wind from sending us to join my hat in the crater. The trail guide had recommended using hands and knees if necessary (I had been bemused when I read that originally, now I understood!) so we adopted an undignified low sideways scuttle braced against the wind, and once we were over the peak, I was able to hunker down and risk taking out my camera to capture the fantastic views.

Twenty metres down the scree slope and the wind was suddenly almost non-existent so we were able to locate a warm spot of ground (the Red Crater is still active) and eat lunch in the sunshine that had suddenly appeared after its notable absence on the other side of the mountain. Rosie lent me her spare bobble hat for the rest of the trip which should result in some comedy photos but it was still cold, and we had four hours of walking to go so this was no time to be fashion-concious!

The descent took us close to the beautiful and accurately named Emerald lakes, then across another snow covered valley. From the other end we had a fantastic view of the Red Crater we had just climbed, plus the (again descriptively named) Blue Lake. There was another rocky traverse across the face of Mount Tongariro and then a long and gentle descent through some geothermal springs, and then eventually vegetation returned and the last hour was actually following the path of a sparkling clear stream through a lush green forest—a complete contrast to the volcanic landscape of the morning!

Our hostel was equipped with a hot tub which was a welcome relief for tired muscles, and despite the less than ideal weather conditions, it was a fantastic day.

Later in the afternoon the Magic bus took us into Rotorua with just enough time for a quick dip in our hostel’s hot pool before changing and heading out to the Tamaki Maori village for a cultural evening. The Tamaki put on an impressive show of traditional song and dance, but unfortunately the educational part of the evening was rather short, and outside in the freezing cold, which meant I didn’t enjoy it as much as the Mitai cultural performance I attended last time. On the other hand, since this is the show promoted by the main backpacker tour operators, our table for dinner was mostly other backpackers and the company was good.

The next morning the bus driver gave us a quick tour of Rotorua which we would have otherwise missed. Because of all the geothermal springs, it seems it was originally founded as NZ’s first spa town and has some really attractive formal gardens and Edwardian buildings in a lake-side setting—a lovely place except for the constant and pungent sulphur smell.

Heading out of town we saw the Lady Knox Geyser and then Wai-o-tapu thermal wonderland. Previously I had found these rather dull and uninspiring, but coming from the north the weird landscape made a enjoyable and fascinating change from the green rolling hills which had become somewhat monotonous, and in the sunshine the greens, reds and pinks of the volcanic pools were vivid and shocking. I think it also helped that we limited ourselves to only the main 50 min walking track instead of attempting the full 75 min walk as it meant we escaped the sulphuric stench just as our stomaches began to rebel. After a “not as good as last time” experience the night before, it was great to find something I was glad to have re-visited!

Photos!

NZ 2008: Rotorua and Wellington

The Bay of Islands is in the enticingly named “Winterless North” (made even more so by the grey drizzle that welcomed us to Auckland), a half day’s drive north of Auckland. The main town, Pahia is a popular holiday spot, with a long, mostly sandy beach but the real attraction is the 100 or so islands with secluded coves and the dolphins which swim in the crystal clear waters. Due to bus timetables we were not able to stay long enough to spend a whole day cruising around the bay, so we opted for the “express tour”, NZ style—a high adrenaline tour of the bay at 40-45 knots in a open-topped catamaran with super-charged twin turbines and a skipper who liked to employ an “equal opportunity” policy of soaking of her passengers on both sides of the boat… The sun was shining, the islands were beautiful (a bit like the Whitsundays, but without the tropical vegetation and white sand, so greener) and it was great fun, even if the salt water did sting a bit!

Photos!

NZ 2008: Auckland and Paihia