This is the end of our first week in NZ so I figured I would re-cap on what we have been up to and how things have gone – as much for our benefit as anything else; days seem to be flying by.
Our first 4 days stopping in Devonport, Auckland, were great. We stayed in a lovely little B&B by the sea, which gave us an opportunity to get over the jetlag, which was made worse by the Buster not getting that it wasn’t really suitable to start the day at 3am. The first day we had breakfasted, watched TV, got dressed, unpacked and had a text-a-thon with mum and the sun still wasn’t up! Ah well – that’s just a bad memory now and the boy is back up to full speed. Our hosts at the B&B, Perrin, Bryan and their dog Hunter were really nice – Hunter and Buster became great friends.
Auckland was too much of a backpacker city to be of any real interest – everyone you spoke to was either English or Scottish or American. Met guys from Leeds, Settle and Derbyshire without even trying. I would have loved it 10 years ago, as it looked like a city that could throw a good party, but these days we just hankered to get out into the quiet of the countryside asap.
Our main job in Auckland was to get a car sorted – and did we get a car! We fancied a Subaru Forester (0-60 in 5.9 seconds from a family estate – hmmmm) but were talked out of that by our friendly car salesman Mitch (from the UK!) for a sweet 3 litre 6 cylinder Subaru Outback – it’s a dream. A lot cheaper than the Forester, bigger (thank God – we fill it with all our stuff) and sporting every gizmo known to man - it’s like driving a flying carpet. Driving speeds over here are around 60-70mph on the main highways (all winding and rolling like a never ending motor bikers dream) so its effortless and I am an automatic transmition convert – it makes eating and drinking at speed so much easier.
So – out of Auckland we headed to Rotarua for 3 nights – land of bubbling mud, stinking sulpha geo-thermal pools, steaming Geezers and lots of monster sized Maori’s. We stopped in a really nice little camp site on the edge of town, right next to the lake, with its own lakes of the bubbling brown stuff, thermally heated swimming pool and some of the most hospitable campers on the planet – it was like some kind of summer camp for happy foreigners.
For me the best bit was getting the chairlift up the local mountain and ‘tobogganing’ down on a specially luge track. It was wild – I was expecting some tame tourist rubbish but it was flat out (I nearly blew my ankle out sticking it on the tarmac trying to scrub off speed before a particularly terrifying hairpin!). We had 3 goes each (Buster and I went tandem style which only added to the danger) before mid morning coffee.
Lisas’s favourite bit was without doubt the bubbling mud – apparently she has wanted to see it since seeing pictures of it as a nipper. I have to admit it was cool watching all this gas coming out of the ground super heating water and mud pools – but damn, did it stink!
All in Rotarua was a great place and one we definitely fancy coming back to for a holiday in the future – there was tonnes we didn’t see and, as the mountain bike World Champs were there in 2006, I fully expect there to be some great riding round there as well.
Today we left our happy camping friends and drove down to Ohaknue – a winter mecca for skiers but pretty sleepy out of season. Our abode is a 1930 train carriage perched on the edge of a valley – very orient express. On the way down we passed through the Tongarriro national park. This road skirted past the massive ancient volcano ‘Mount Ngauruhoe’ and the even bigger snow capped mountain ‘Mount Ruapehu’, which is where all the skiing happens in the winter. Tomorrow we are heading back to the national park to get a chairlift up Mount Ruapehu, and then carrying on down the North Island to Wanganui on the West coast. This should give us a good change from all the mountains we have had for the last few days and Buster chance to get himself wet at least 3 times a day – I’ll let you know how it turns out.
So far we absolutely loving NZ – its better than we could have imagined. I know its still very early days, and we are living a holiday lifestyle, but so far definitely so good.
I'll upload some pictures to Flickr ASAP xx
No internet connection means I haven't been able to update the site for a bit but in all honesty there hasn't been much newsworthy to write about - apart from whooping Andy O's ass at pool and having a superb MTB ride in Wales with JP that made me question why we were heading half way round the World. Mainly its been bag packing, underwear buying, final farewell's - all that kind of stuff. Anyway - we are now sat at Heathrow waiting for our flight to Auckland to be called so I guess you could say we are on our way. Finally! We land in NZ on the 23 Feb then are stopping in Auckland for 3 days to recover before heading off around the country for a couple of weeks. I'll let you know how we get on but till then suffice to say that we will really miss everyone who has given us such a fond goodbye. We will really miss you all (yep, that includes you Jake despite appearances) but the time has come for an adventure. Ciao for now - now where is that seat I can call home for the next 30hrs - and the boy for that matter!!! BUSTER PUT THAT DOWN.......