New Zealand travels

Mount Cook from the trail

New Zealand – the Maori's beautiful 'land of the long white cloud' or, as Captain Cook wrote, ‘land of the birds’.  He circumnavigated the country in 1769 and he released a few pigs to provide food for future sailors.  Wild pigs are still called 'Captain Cookers' here.

 

The flightless Weka seems fearless - this one was photographed in Shanty Town, near Greymouth.

 A Little Blue Penguin in its burrow on the Banks Peninsula near Dunedin

We tried to see Kiwis in the wild on Stewart and Ulva Islands and in Northland but we were only lucky enough to hear them.  We did see these extraordinary birds at 5 different sanctuaries and this is a white 'Brown Kiwi' at Mount Bruce wildlife park.  The whiteness is a recessive gene, not albinism. As they are nocturnal they are in very dimly lit enclosures - they run and jump and are really fast.

One of my favourite birds is the fantail.  They fly around you cheeping madly as they want you to keep moving and disturb insects for them.

Yellow Eyed Penguin on the Banks peninsula - isn't he gorgeous?

The beautiful Kaka parrots flew down to our balcony on Stewart Island for nuts.

The glamorous pied cormorants balancing on our mooring ropes

There are albatross colonies on the Banks Peninsula (the biggest main land colony in the world) and around Stewart Island where John photographed this one. 










New Zealand is rugged snow-capped mountains, rolling hills, valleys, sheep, braided glacial rivers, waterfalls and streams.  It is vineyards, beaches, bungalows, orchards, sheep, grasslands, ancient forests and logging.  Glaciers, sheep, cattle, corrugated iron, alpacas, birds, fish & chips, hokey pokey, The Lord of the Rings movies, bungee jumping and great people. With a population of 4.5 million (and over 40 million sheep) you can travel for miles through the most spectacular countryside with ease.  The campsites are excellent and by joining the NZ Motor Caravan Association we got great discounts as well as lots of free places to stay at members properties.

Our little van at the Franz Josef glacier campsite. It was instantly christened 'hibiscus' by our friends from Banana.

The giant sand dunes that are remnants of ancient volcanic activity sweep for miles down the north-west coast of Northland.  You can hire boards to surf down them.  We were here on a cool winter's day - no-one around to try surfing with (and I am sticking with that excuse).

On the way to Mount Cook

This is a difficult blog to write because, really, we have been fortunate enough to have a lot of time to explore the beautiful country of New Zealand – so 12 weeks of touring is not exactly a hardship!  Being stuck in a tiny van in the rain while 'free camping' in the forest is, however, a bit claustrophobic.  I would recommend being in a camp site with a sitting room in wet weather -then the van is nice and snug for bed-time and you have all managed to spend some time apart which is healthy! The sites all have kitchens, showers & often free barbecues too & the posh ones have TV rooms & other spaces you can use.  Miranda Springs site has its own hot pool so we went there 3 times. 

Cape Reinga lighthouse at the tip of North Island, looking out over the turbulence & whirlpools of the Tasman sea meeting the Pacific ocean

The beautiful Department of Conservation camp site under Cape Reinga.  These sites are always in gorgeous places and have very basic facilities (long-drop loos & a tap if you're lucky) or none at all.  But here you are lulled to sleep by the sounds of the sea, miles from anywhere.

As far south that you can get on the mainland!

  We have travelled from the top of North Island to the bottom of South Island, further south to Stewart & Ulva Islands, and from east to west and round about.  So - I am going to bore you with photos though I have tried to limit them to some of the highlights.

Robert-Louis, Sophie, Marie, Harry & Oscar

We travelled with our friends from yacht Banana for the first 3 weeks.  They left their boat in New Caledonia as it is difficult to enter NZ with a dog on board.  It was so lovely to see them again and we had a very sociable time touring with them - Harry, Oscar & Marie didn't stop talking the entire time!

We met up in Hobbiton (at Matamata near Rotorua) and were fortunate enough to have some Lord of the Rings fanatics on our tour -  a Gandalf, 2 hobbits and an elf - all from Manchester!

Peter Jackson wanted Hobbiton to look like an English village so he brought in thatchers from England to thatch the roof of The Green Dragon.  Despite building Hobbiton on a sheep farm he decreed that the sheep did not look English enough so had some flown in from the UK!

The whole place is so attractive you just want to move straight in.  There's a team of gardeners keeping the gardens blooming and full of vegetables too.

The hobbit doors are different sizes depending on who is being filmed in front of them.








Then we headed for Rotorua and the world famous hot springs and geysers.

 The meeting house at the Maori village in Rotorua

Rotorua museum was built as a bath house in the spa town.  There were some extraordinary treatments including being wired up for an electric bath.

Napier suffered a massive earthquake on the 3rd February 1931 during which 256 people died, thousands were injured and most  of the town was flattened.  There were 525 aftershocks in the next 2 weeks.  This tragedy was instrumental in a complete revision of NZ building regulations.  As it was the time of the great depression very little building was being done around the world & the architects who came here left a unique place with their art-deco buildings.



Inside the cinema.









Then it rained for days, we headed on south and ended up camping in the car park of the Petone Working Mens Club in Wellington, where we had a great welcome, a good meal and then squelched our way back through the puddles to the van.

Down to South Island on the ferry, across the Cook Straits and into the beautiful Chalotte sound.  On 2 of our 4 crossings we saw big schools of dolphins.



The pancake rocks look out to the turquoise Tasman sea breaking on golden beaches along this spectacular part of the coast from Westport to Greymouth.

In Greymouth the kids met up with friends from yacht Elcie which was great.  They also befriended some NZ kids who turned out to be home educated because they are creationists.  This provoked some interesting discussions and debates among them.


Panning for gold in Shanty Town where you get the story of early logging and of the gold rush.

The walks to both Franz Josef and Fox glaciers are spectacular.  The glaciers are receding at an alarming rate, much faster that ever recorded due to climate change.

Queenstown for bungee jumping or the luge!

We did 'The Ride of the Rings' at Paradise Farm in the Dart valley.  Harry is in the valley of Isengard with the Misty Mountains behind!

Many of the woodland & forest scenes were filmed in the woodlands here.  When a key tree was struck by lightning Peter Jackson had a complete replica made.

                                                   Never, ever thought I'd get on a horse!

The Dart River is a perfect example of a braided glacial river

 Some sites where we 'freedom' camped.  What you can't see in the above photo is the thousands of little black forest flies (called sandflies by the Kiwis) which give a vicious bite & cause a fast retreat back into the van

On top of a breezy hill the sandflies are not a problem.  (Summit car park between Wanaka & Queenstown - the highest point you can get to on a paved road)

 The beautifully crazy garden at The Giant's House' in Akaroa

The journey to Mount Cook where we met these sheep was another memorable trip.  The farmer is in a blue shirt, walking along with his dogs.

 Yes, sadly the Banana family have returned to their boat so we have their chairs! 

Dept. of Conservation campsite in the national park - cool spot, eh.

Edmund Hillary learnt to climb on Mount Cook and his statue at the centre that bears his name looks out towards the mountain.  It is well worth spending several hours here learning about the climbing but also about the decades of work he put in to support the sherpas and their families.

The old post office on Ulva Island.  A flag would be flown when there was mail and the whalers and others on all the little outlying islands would sail or row across for news.  This island is now pest free (rats, weasels, stoats and possums) so there are Kiwi birds here.

The moeraki boulders on the Otago coast are septarian concretions.  They formed as spheres in mudstone and as the cliffs erode they fall onto the beach.



Nature's Wonders is near the albatross centre at the tip of the Banks peninsula.  It was on this bone-shaking trip that we saw both types of penguins and the adorable fur seals.

You can't visit Dunedin without walking (climbing) up Baldwin Street - officially the steepest residential street in the world.

 

                                            That walk certainly warmed us up.

Back up towards Christchurch and we camped in the woods by the beach in this bay north of Akaroa

 The cathedral in Christchurch still awaiting a decision as to its fate.  People are divided between restoring it, demolishing it or keeping it as a memorial ruin.

After 3 years the most damaged building in the city centre are being demolished.  The city is now the city of shipping containers that are shoring up buildings and providing accommodation as the Re-Start mall proves.

The temporary cathedral is made from giant cardboard tubes and the lower walls are shipping containers.  Yes, Charlotte joined us for 3 weeks here!

Seal watching north of Christchurch

Back to Rotorua

Waihi beach

Karangahake gorge, between Waihi and Paeroa - this journey is described as one of the best trips in NZ by the Lonely Planet guide.  Gold was found here and the rush lasted for years.  The miners hacked out tunnels and paths.

                                          The tunnels run for miles and are very, very dark!

Having driven past it several times on our way to Auckland from Whangarei we had to visit Sheep World!  Sheep shearing and feeding the lambs are highlights.

 Hugging an ancient kauri tree on the walk up to Whangarei falls is a must.  The oldest kauri still standing is over 2500years old.  Thousands were cut down by the settlers to build houses before anyone realised how long they take to grow. 

All too soon it was Charlotte's last night with us.

The Waitangi treaty grounds are where the British and the Maori chiefs signed the treaty that founded the modern New Zealand.

This war canoe was built using traditional methods - 4 kauri trees were used and it was launched to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the treaty in 1940.  88 men are needed to paddle it and it is the largest single-hulled canoe in the world.  It is still used every Waitangi day.

Tane Mahuta in the Waipoua forest is the largest Kauri tree around and is still growing.  4.4metres in diameter! 

There are loads of interesting small museums around the country.  The Dargaville museum is one of the best.  The masts of the Rainbow Warrior are in the grounds.  She was sunk by French secret service men in July 1985 because Greenpeace were planning a peaceful protest against nuclear bomb testing at Mururoa atoll in the Tuamotos.  One crew member was killed & this act of sabotage caused outrage around the world.


From the New Zealand encyclopedia:

Abel Tasman

Portuguese and Spanish ships began crossing the Pacific Ocean in the 1500s, but it was probably not until 1642 that a European sighted New Zealand. In that year the Dutch explorer Abel Tasman sailed in search of a vast southern continent, which many Europeans thought might exist in the South Pacific. Dutch merchants hoped this land would offer new opportunities for trade. Tasman discovered New Zealand on 13 December 1642, but after a bloody encounter with Māori in Golden Bay, he left without going ashore.

Shortly afterwards, a Dutch map maker gave the name Nieuw Zeeland to the land Tasman had discovered.

James Cook

The English navigator Captain James Cook sighted New Zealand on 6 October 1769, and landed at Poverty Bay two days later. He drew detailed and accurate maps of the country, and wrote about the Māori people. His first encounter with Māori was not successful – a fight broke out in which some Māori were killed. However, after this Cook and his men had friendly contact with Māori.

The naturalists Joseph Banks and Daniel Solander, who sailed with Cook, gathered a great deal of information about the country’s plants and animals. Their records formed the foundation for the modern study of New Zealand botany.

On two later voyages, Captain Cook used New Zealand as a base to prove that a great southern continent did not exist in the Pacific.