Friday 20th
So its Friday afternoon, the 20th of Feb, I was at work, the day was dragging on because my mate Rob Kingston is here in NZ, and he has been heading down to Wellington over the last few days, and I will be flying down this evening to join him, and drive back up north, which is exciting because I will be able to see the capitol of NZ and considerably more of the country than I otherwise would have seen.
The day drags on for an age, finally 5:30 comes around and we knock off, the plane doesn't leave until 7:55, but with the traffic problems around here it will take us close to an hour to travel the 30 odd KM to the airport (that’s not a joke, it has indeed taken me that long, and longer to travel short distances in the past) and obviously, you don’t want to be late for a plane! So after getting changed in the little hut at work, we left! Fortunately we over estimated the traffic and it only took around 40 minutes to arrive, so I was very early to the airport, which I didn’t mind, I have never been to the Domestic Terminal at Auckland so it gave me plenty of time to work out where everything was and time to grab some tea.
My plane left on time, and managed to arrive 15 minutes early! Which was nice, I am not a huge fan of flying. I had the front exit row seat so my chair didn’t lay back too, which made things a little more uncomfortable. Rob was waiting at the Wellington Terminal to pick me up, having already been to the campsite to set up our tents, and as it turns out my quality $9 job is embarrassingly transparent! It was only a shortish drive to the camp, and being dark i saw very little of the city that night.
Saturday 21st
And now its Saturday! Seeing as I have been working all week, a sleep in till 7am is all that I got (when you are up at 5am every day for work, a 7am sleep in is amazingly satisfying). Rob was awake too (this is very rare, in fact I don’t think I have ever seen it before!). So we packed everything up and headed for the nearest Information Center, collecting various flyers and information for things to do in Wellington as well as the rest of the Island. Deciding what we wanted to do we headed back to the car, stopping in at a few shops along the way. We decided to visit a local free museum (being on a budget, we had to limit our spending, it was also raining). It wasn't to bad, there were a few interesting displays, though its not something i would go back too.
Next up, the Weta Cave!! For those who don’t know (I didn't either till Rob came here, so don’t feel bad). Weta is the company that did the movie props and things for Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit Trilogy, the Weta Cave being their public shop of prop replicas and such, very cool place! Though I did not have enough money to buy anything cool (such as a gold replica of The One Ring, priced at $1800 NZD). After drooling over a few props we headed off for some lunch, Burger King was the nearest place. After a hearty feast we punched New Plymouth into the GPS and began our north bound trek! The day before I had been curios to see if there were any streets in the world named after me, how awesome was it that one of them was in Wellington?! So on the way out of Wellington we went and found it! Jasons Place, we went there just for the photo, was quite cool!
Several hours later we arrived at Palmerston North, we had a look around, went into a few shops before heading out to find the holiday park, we wanted to get our quality tents set up in good time. Arriving at the holiday park we discovered over the back fence was an aquatic center (Lido Aquatic), with insane looking hydro slides! I couldn't pass that up, and as luck would have it we had both packed our swimmers, and when we got there discovered they had an after 6pm discount! Score!
^ you hit 60km/h going down that thing!
This has to be the most epic aquatic center I have ever been too (not that I’ve been to many) going down the yellow slide you hit speeds of 60km/h! I have to admit the first time down that one was a bit daunting! I think the green one was my favorite though, spinning around in the bowl and then going down the exit tube backwards was just fun! (I did fall off the tubes a few times...)
We also tried the diving boards, and swam a lap of the Olympic pool before we left. After cleaning up and grabbing some tea, we went to hunt out a Kmart because I wanted to find some additional padding to sleep on, the $10, 10mm thick foam air thingo just wasn’t sufficient! The only thing we could find in Kmart that was remotely suitable was a fitness matt, not ideal, but better than nothing! Upon returning to the holiday park, setting up my new bed, it was time for another adventure with my transparent tent!
Sunday 22nd
Surprisingly the addition of a fitness mat made for a more sound sleep! I slept far better than I did the previous night! Rob has been finding a geocache at each location he has stayed at, so while we waited for the shops to open we went and found one in the town square. After exploring a few local stores, we continued our northward trek toward Rotorua. Stopping along the way to take photos, we also found some impressive clay cliffs and mini canyons:
Because we had forayed from the main highway we ended up finding an alternate route to the next town, which proved much cooler than the major highway.
After rejoining the highway from our little foray, we were just cruising along, in no particular hurry, heading towards Rotorua, when BAM, there’s a tank on the side of the highway! Upon closer inspection we discovered the National Army Museum. So being boys, we pulled in for a look, grabbed a few photos on the tanks (there was more than one) and had a look in the shop. Because of budgets and time constraints we didn't do the tour. Perhaps one day I will return to do it. But for now, ONWARD!
As we were driving up through the highlands (it was quite an awesome bit of road) we were driving past a mountain, we took notice because it was covered in white (like it had been snowed on) but it was way to hot for snow or ice, so we theorized it was clay. Little did we realize we were staring into Mordor….
^ Behold Mt Doom!
Our route to Rotorua bypassed Taupo, but seen as we were exploring we couldn’t go past without at least driving thru, on our way thru I spotted a sign that said HUKA FALLS, it was a spur of the moment decision, but I said lets go that way! Veering off course (Rob was not expecting my input) we headed down to have a look. To our surprise it turned out to be well, well worth the detour, as you can see in the photos below, its not your typical waterfall, and it is quite impressive!
^ an insane amount of water! 200,000 Liters per Second, I’d love to see it in flood!
Our next stop on Saturday was Kerosene Creek, this is what we had packed our swimming gear for, its a hot water creek, yes hot, hotter than you would have a bath in! Its quite unreal, its a fairly large, fast flowing creek too.
It’s quite an experience sitting under a waterfall of hot water in the middle of the bush!
After we got ourselves cleaned up we continued on to Rotorua, the weather was a bit crap so we pre-booked a cabin.
I can tell you I was very much looking forward to sleeping in a real bed!
Monday 23rd
Slept like a log last night! Turns out a real bed beats a foam mat underneath a fitness mat, who knew right? Anyway, today we planned to visit Skyline to ride on the Luge and visit the official Jelly Belly Store! But before they opened we went and found a local geocache, and while we were looking for that stumbled on a pretty epic, and very active geothermal area on the shore of the Lake.
Rob hadn’t seen this sort of thing before (I saw it last October when mum and dad were here) so we had a good look around, its interesting to see pockets of boiling water just metres from a stone cold lake, what was more interesting though is when I spotted a section of boiling water about 10 metres out into the lake:
By this time Skyline was open so we headed up! Skyline is situated on the side of a hill on the outer edge of Rotorua, you get to ride a fancy enclosed chair lift to the top, which is a bit of fun, there is quite a few activities you can do up there, but for me the Luge is the most exciting, we payed for 5 rides and headed on up, for our first ride we got straight on basically, but once we got back to the top there was a Q, it was about a 15 minute wait, but when we got back for our third ride it was even longer, and again for our 4th, it took around 40 minutes to get our 4th ride, due to time constraints we couldn't take our 5th, so after the 4th ride we headed to the Jelly Bean shop, and then back down the Gondola to grab some lunch.
^ made of Jelly Beans
Our next stop…... HOBBITON!!! Ah I was so keen for this one. You can’t come to Kiwi Land and not visit The Shire! About an hours drive from Rotorua, Hobbiton is on a farm in what seems like the middle of nowhere! Fortunately we had been smart enough to pre book a tour, the place was packed! We were there with plenty of time to have a look around the shop and be ready for our tour at 3pm. The tour took 2 hours, and I can’t really describe it, so here is a heap of photos:
How Awesome!?
After Hobbiton the plan was to hit Hamilton and go drifting at the local Blastacars! An absolutely awesome activity I have done many times before (there is no equivalent in Aus) but when we got there found that it was shut on Mondays.. So we went and found some tea, fish and chips (how kiwi of us right?) and then headed back to my place. Dean had sent me a text and said the weather looked bad for tomorrow so no need to rush home, so I didn't set an alarm! And was hoping to get tomorrow off so we could go drifting (we checked! they are open Tuesdays)
Tuesday 24th
Sleeping in till 7 again, and waking to find a message from Dean saying it was dry and to ring him when I surfaced, I was a little sneaky and got up and had a shower and some breaky before ringing him. But when I did I was asked to go to work, I cant complain, he has given me plenty of time off, so I packed a lunch and headed off. We decided that, whilst it would be a late night, we would go drifting after work that night, Dean caught wind of this during the day and said I could leave a bit early and sleep in tomorrow (I have a really good boss). After ringing Blastacars I got us booked in for 8:30pm, so I worked until 5pm then headed back to my place. Hamilton was closing at 5pm, so we booked into the Auckland track, which I didn't mind because I wanted to try that track anyway. The Bighorn (my work car) still isn’t going right, so we decided it best to take Robs rental car up. Stopping on the way at Burger Fuel for a true Kiwi meal, the Fush and Chups Meal, which is a fish burger, a side of chips and garlic aioli dip and a L&P drink (a Kiwi creation). You cant get much more Kiwi than that:
The drifting was loads of fun! The Auckland track is good, but I think the Hamilton one is better. Anyway after our sessions it was around 10:15, and we were hot and sweaty from the karts so we called into a local Maccas for a McFlurry before heading back to my place, getting into bed at around 11:40pm, with an alarm set for 7am..
And that marks the end of a pretty good weekend seeing NZ, now to try and resuscitate the bank account….