The below blog covers the visit of Greg and Sam last week. Apologies about the length, but I've tried to cover a lot of ground/time. Feel free to just enjoy the pictures.
Greg and Sam arrived on Tuesday 8 March, and were greatly
impressed by some excellent homemade signage that had found its way into
Wellington airport.
After exploring Wellington on Wednesday – Te Papa and the
Beehive the core of their itinerary – we (Sam, Greg and I, Roger) began our
taster session of the North Island with a wine tasting tour of Martinborough.
 |
| Tasting the wine, repeatedly |
The settlement was founded by John Martin, who, not content with just
having a town named after him, proceeded to name all the streets after places
he’d visited. We therefore spent the day cycling along Panama Street, Cambridge
Road and New York Street. A tandem added some additional wobbliness to an
already wobbly afternoon, during which we visited six wineries and tasted 36
different wines. Our palettes thoroughly worn out, we finished off the evening at
a traditional Wellington Cambodian restaurant.
We spent Friday travelling up to the Tongariro National Park. A stop off at Trish and Andrews’ farm near Marton provided Sam and Greg
with the opportunity to risk their necks quad-biking (and augmented our
supplies with some famous chocolate fudge). Our wine-related late departure from Welly and
various logistics stops meant that the brief hike to the first hut of our
Northern Circuit route (Mangetepopo) was carried out in the fading dusk light, which added
some jeopardy to what otherwise was a very relaxing day.
The Northern Circuit includes a good part of the Tongariro
Crossing, and is one of the ‘Great Walks’ of New Zealand. Greg, Sam and I
headed up Ngauruhoe (Mount Doom in the Lord of the Rings films) summit then Tongariro,
whilst Dora stuck with our friend James and some of his friends for the first
part of the day (account to come).
Once we’d retrieved Dora from near a supernaturally blue
lake we tramped around Ngauruhoe to our hut for the night. A brilliant
sunset, some less brilliant food and very communal sleeping arrangements
awaited us.
Sunday saw us complete the majority of the Northern Circuit
loop, which is picturesque but couldn’t avoid being less impressive than the
awe-inspiring views of the previous day. Highlights of Sunday included an old
hut that served impractical early 20th century skiing (where the men's room had a fire and the women's a mirror), some very
blue lakes, and a nice waterfall at the end.
Whilst Dora scooted off to Wellington, Sam, Greg and I
went to do some white water rafting on the Rangitikei. We had been promised an isolated and Grade 5 (the hardest accessible) experience like no other… but the presence of a large group of backpackers and very low water levels put paid to both of these attributes. We instead braved
the same course in inflatable kayaks, which was still great fun, even if at
times it felt as through we were paddling through pebbles as much as water.
 |
| Greg (during run) with Taupo in background |
Heading up to Taupo, we arrived at our Air BnB, which had
incredible views over the lake. A relaxed evening with curry and ‘The Bachelor’
(an awfully compulsive awful show with which New Zealand seems obsessed) closed
the evening, as we looked forward to sky diving the next day…
… which was unfortunately cancelled due to bad weather!
Determined to keep our chins up we zoomed over to the Oraki Karakei volcanic
springs, before coming back to Taupo for a spot of miniature golf and an
‘escape room’. The latter of these was based in a shipping container in a car
park, but we set aside any misgivings and agreed to be locked inside u
ntil we
had solved an extensive set of clues and riddles. This we managed with aplomb,
and are now proud holders of the award for the top International Escape Room
team (to have completed the Taupo escape room)!
The next morning Lady Luck again decided not to bless us
with good enough weather for skydiving, so we hit the mountain bike tracks for
which Taupo is famous. Despite Greg initially falling in a ravine we had a
brilliant morning, although my confidence got the better of me towards the end
and resulted in a crash where I picked up some minor flesh wounds. 
Saying goodbye to Taupo, we continued our journey up the
North Island to visit the set of Hobbiton, which has come a long way since Sam
visited in the late 2000s, when apparently it consisted entirely of some
remnants of the set and disinterested sheep. The latest version – reincarnated
for the filming of the Hobbit and now maintained as a tourist trap – is much
more impressive, with real vegetables, a working hobbit pub (‘The Green
Dragon’) and plenty of keen tour guides dispensing facts about the slightly
unhinged demands Peter Jackson places on the production team (e.g. repainting all the leaves on a particular tree to be a more picturesque shade of green).
As Wednesday came to a close we drove up to the Coromandel,
arriving at our beachside retreat just before the dodgy headlights on our hire
car made us a genuine danger to other road users.
 |
| Digging for warmth |
The next morning the Weather Gods were again not in our
favour, as storm-like conditions and incessant rain made scuba-diving
impossible. In search of warmth, we headed to Hot Springs Beach, where you can
dig a couple of inches into the sand to find geothermal-heated water, and
thence go on to engineer an outdoor swimming pool powered by the earth’s core.
We then made the best of a very brief break in the weather to trek over to
Cathedral Cove, where the sea has hollowed out a huge tunnel in an outcrop of
rock.
The rest of Thursday was spent looking for activities that
are possible in terrible weather, of which the Coromandel is in short supply.
Our final evening was spent at the only pub in the small town we were staying,
where we continued the ‘wet’ theme of the day into the evening, but with beer
instead of rain.
 |
| View downwards from Sky Tower |
 |
| Me wearing typical NZ rugby top, on a typical NZ hill, in front of a typical Auckland scene |
On Friday we travelled to Auckland. The Sky Tower caught our
eye first, which is unsurprising since it is the highest building in the Southern
Hemisphere, something the information boards won’t let you forget. Having seen
Auckland from above, we then decided to see it from far away, so caught a boat
to Rangitoto Island. This is the most recently-active of Auckland’s numerous
volcanoes, with the last eruption around 600 years ago. With only 1.75 hours to
do a trek that is meant to take 2.5, we power-walked to the summit and then
through some impressive lava caves. Once we’d returned to the mainland we headed
up another hill – Mt Eden – to see the city from a different angle, before
driving to the airport to drop off our decrepit hire car.
Next blog post will be an account of Dora's Tongariro crossing (more about the scenery) and then we’ll be covering our Easter Weekend trip up to Northland, which is – you guessed it – the
northernmost bit of New Zealand’s north island.
No comments:
Post a Comment