Auckland (boooo!) and Northland (hooray!)

Hello. I am in a strange faraway land called New Zealand. Before I tell you what I've found here, check out the amazing sunset seen from the plane window:

Also, allow me to introduce you to my travelling companion, Stuart:

After all, it's always nice to share your travel experiences with a friend. And Stuart is pretty easy going, and is generally happy to go along with whatever I want to do. He also has a sharp eye for detail.



Auckland

Largely unavoidable if you are travelling NZ's north island, Auckland is pretty unremarkable.

Here is the obligatory Sky Tower shot:

The only notable thing I did was take a ferry across the water to a place called Devonport. It's a bit like Weymouth, only with less ambition and drive. You get a nice view of the city though:

However, after an hour spent shuffling along the promenade, I sensed that my mind was about to slip into semi-retirement mode, so I didn't linger.




Northland and the Bay of Islands

Pleased to be leaving Auckland, I caught a bus up to Northland. It's where the first European settlers took up residence. Known for its prominence in the three 'F's of industry: farming, fishing and forestry, Northland generally looks like this:

 

On the journey I saw a couple of interesting things.

First, a flock of strawberry-flavoured sheep; the main attraction at the enticingly titled 'Sheepworld'.

Sheepworld, from what I could tell, consisted of this small flock, and a deserted cafe. Unmissable.

Secondly, on passing through a town called KawaKawa, I visited what are possibly the most photographed toilets in the world - they are really quite something:

The bus dropped me off in a coastal town called Paihia, in the Bay of Islands. The Bay of Islands generally looks like this:

This was to be my base for the next couple of nights, from which I would take a coach trip further north to Cape Reinga.


The next morning, the bus left at dawn. I thought the view of the Bay was pretty nice; however, one of the girls on my bus, who has spent the past year living in the south island, reckons this kind of scenery is hardly worth getting out of bed for:

The first scheduled stop was Ninety Mile Beach. Which is, needless to say, 64 miles long...

I was driven along the beach for 40 miles, in THIS bad boy:

YEEEAAAAHHHH!!!!












There were no sunloungers, ice cream stalls or speedos in sight. Possibly because this is actually quite a treacherous place to be:

Here I am, sunbathing:

Stuart spotted something quite interesting on the beach. There were a few of these dotted around the sand, but neither of us could work out what they were, or why they had come:

There was no time to investigate further, as we had to get on with the serious task of sand boarding (otherwise known as 'sand eating'):

Then it was onwards to Cape Reinga. Pretty much the northernmost part of NZ, it's where the Tasman Sea and the Pacific Ocean come head to head. The departure lounge for Maori souls sloping off to their spiritual homeland, it's quite significant:

It certainly beats the view from the Croydon flyover.

You can see the tumultuous Tasman on the West, and the calm Pacific on the East:

The white line is the 'step' where the ocean currents collide:

Most unusual.




Our scheduled boat trip the next day was cancelled, so to pass the time I decided to take a bit of a stroll, accompanied by a very nice young German girl I met on the coach.

Our journey took us beyond the bay...

...over a bridge....

.....through a mangrove swamp...

...into a forest of vines...

...along a river...

.... and ended up at this waterfall:

Not bad for a day's work.

(NB - I always feel compelled to say the word 'mangrove' in a Jamaican accent. Not sure why. Perhaps it's because it sounds like 'mango').


My final day in the Bay was spent cruising around some of the islands, doing a bit of dolphin spotting on the way. We stopped off at this little place:

We also paid a visit to a famous rock which has a big hole it the middle. Somewhat unimaginatively named 'Hole in the Rock', it does what it says on the tin:

Here are some dolphins:

Sadly it was then time to head back to Auckland for an overnight stay before embarking on the next leg of my journey. On the way back, I spotted a couple of tree huggers:

I also happened upon another remarkable toilet, this one noteworthy for the used surgical glove on the cubicle floor:

Sinister.

So that wraps up Northland and the Bay of Islands. The next leg of my journey will take me through Hahei, Raglan, Rotorua, Taupo and Tongariro National Park. Taupo is the place to be if you want to throw yourself off / into / out of things, so that should be fun.

Northland verdict: Very nice
Do I miss England: Nope

Hahei - Rotorua

My stopover in Auckland was predictably dull. The bus left the city at around 8am the next day, transporting me to a town called Hahei, situated in the Coromandel region of NZ. This part of the country generally looks like this:

...I sense a theme emerging.

Hahei and around

On the way to Hahei we stopped at a place called Hotwater Beach. Disappointingly, there was no hot water for us that day, as the tide had already come in and mucked things up. But it was quite a handsome beach nonetheless:

As it was rather cold and windy, I opted to wait in the cafe, where I chatted up by an ancient local man. He must have liked me, because he told me the same story three times - lucky me.

We also visited a beach called Cathedral Cove:

I must confess, I didn't take the above shot, I cheated and lifted it from Google images.

I took this one though:

We stayed in a pretty dire hostel comprised of temporary buildings (like the kind you had at school) in a campsite. Perhaps by way of compensation, our bus driver cooked us a BBQ (I'm sure it was meant to be included in the price of the bus tour, but he charged us a tenner each...)

Yum.

.


Raglan

The following day, I travelled on to Raglan. Raglan is a bit of a surfers' paradise:

My hostel was situated way, way up in the forest-covered hills (with Raglan town centre a mere two hours' walk away). My first evening here was spent participating in the preparation and consumption of a fish curry, with my temporary new best friends...

....preparation

...consumption.

As they all pissed off the next morning, to entertain myself I decided to hike the local 'Loop Track'. I was informed it was a little muddy up there and that I should take care not to slip, but I thought nothing of it, so decided I would brave it - alone.

.....Bad decision.

Whoever saw fit to call this a 'track' must have been having a laugh...

 

This is not a track! It's a freakin' jungle! And there are dead possums everywhere!

I staggered out of the forest two hours later, bewildered and covered from head to toe in mud and bruises, (slipped over on my arse at least three times). I thought I was lost and it had started to get dark...  It would have been well into the night before they sent the search party out... they would no doubt have found me rocking backwards and forwards, incomprehensible and dribbling, possibly hugging a dead possum. Sob!

I made a swift recovery though, and was fit enough to take a walk (along a proper road!) into Raglan the next morning. I was mystified by some unusual carvings on the pavement...

OK, so that kind of makes sense so far, I suppose???

But then...

Hmm?

 Not sure what the rules are here.

Even more confusing:

This was the weirdest one of all:

Jesus, WHAT HAPPENED TO THE SCHOOL PONIES?!!!

No time to ponder, however, as I was starving and had to go home to cook myself some eggs...

Very pretty. The blue one wasn't so good though... damn those eggs, winning me over with their lovely colours and then being all furry on the inside.

Waitomo caves

En route to my next destination, I made a pitstop in Waitomo, an area famous for its network of caves (complete with glow worms).

And what do you do in caves? That's right - you go caving!

 Kind of fun.... kind of traumatic.

The best part was climbing a 20ft sheer rock face, complete with overhang and waterfall pouring onto my face, wearing a very wet wetsuit and wellies! Those sessions at Mile End climbing wall certainly paid off. I felt pretty frickin' Rambo-esque after that...

Very proud.

In the evening, I caught a bus to Rotorua and threw myself straight into a hot tub, to warm up and ease my aching bones. Stuart had caught a cold while down in those freezing caves, so it was an early night for him:

Poor Stuart.

Rotorua

Rotorua was something I had really been looking forward to, but I only had a night and one half-day there, and there wasn't time to visit the geysers or multi-coloured mud pools I had heard so much about.

This is the kind of thing I had HOPED to see in Rotorua......

Wow!!

This is what I actually saw:

Parp.

So yeah. Great.

I must not grumble, as I was fortunate enough to experience the town's rotten egg odour.

Any way, the town centre was just about all I got to see of Rotorua. To be honest I found it a bit of a depressing place to be. It's really just a series of roundabouts and fast food joints. It reminded me partly of Milton Keynes, only without any decent shops. And partly of the Bog of Eternal Stench in the movie Labyrinth, only without David Bowie.

But I was not to be disheartened, because I was looking forward to my next stop in TAAAAAUUUPO WOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!! (That's 'Taupo', but said in an excited tone of voice.) 

 

Hahei - Rotorua verdict: Terrifying and bewildering, but je ne regrette rien

Do I miss England: Nah...