Tao 6: North Island 1

Our next destination is New Zealand, the land of 4 million people and 30 million sheep. New Zealanders often refer to themselves as kiwis. Their national bird is the kiwi, and the kiwi fruit is plenty here.

We flew from Cairns to Auckland on a redeye flight, which landed on New Zealand soil right on time at 5:30AM.  The girl at the customs desk was pleasant and wished us a good trip. We got our Luggages without a hitch. The staff at Australia and New Zealand airports are highly efficient.  Often times our luggages are already on the conveyer belt before we even got there ourselves.

We rented a car from a local company. Many of these local car rental companies offer very competitive prices because they have older cars in their fleet.  We got a blue Toyota Camry which had more than 130000km on it. But the car ran fine and we are on a budget, no complaints there.

We planed to spend most of the time on the South Island, regarded by many to have the best unspoiled natural scenery.  As a result we have only 4 full days on the north island.  Auckland is on the north side of the North Island, we have some driving to do.

Auckland calls itself the City of Sails, a very romantic name.  It is also sitting on about 50 volcanos, not all of which are dead.  We are heading straight for one of them – Rangitoto Island.  The island only formed 600 years ago from the eruption of Auckland’s newest volcano.  A ferry there from Auckland proper takes about 30 minutes with a stop at Devonport. We refueled with two bacon egg sandwiches and a cup of hot chocolate from the ferry’s pantry.  The sandwiches were tiny, but they had to do for now.

Over the last 600 years the volcano had been covered with various plants.  Still, in places there were exposed black volcanic rocks.  There were also faint smell of sulfur at times.  Climb to the top of the volcano was an easy 1 hour hike.  You could see Auckland across the bay from the top.  The view is certainly worth the climb.

A happy Tracy on top of Rangitoto

Kayaks close to the ferry port on Rangitoto

A section of the Rangitoto Ferry Port

It so happened that we came to Auckland during the 2011 Rugby world cup.  This is a huge event here.  Fans from participating countries, many of which were former British commonwealth countries, can be seen everywhere on the streets.

Street near Auckland Ferry Terminal, the white football like structure is for the Rugby World Cup

Artists performing on the street

Rugby fans

Colorful displays - lots of chickens

Making a statement

Directions for Rugby fans?

We didn’t spend the night in Auckland.  Instead we drove down to a small town called Matamata.  Matamata was a farming town just like many others in New Zealand.  It was chosen as the location of Hobbiton for the Lord of the Rings films.  It is also the only LOTR filming locations where the original set is still being kept.

However we didn’t get a chance to tour the set.  The Hobbit film is being filmed here so the set is closed to visitors.  We did roam outside a bit though. We didn’t see anyone around, and Tracy didn’t get to meet Orlando Bloom.

The Shire's Rest cafe, this would be the entry point for LOTR set tour

Grazing sheep just outside the cafe, maybe it has seen Orlando Bloom?

Rolling green hills at the back of the cafe

The B&B we stayed in Matamata is THE best we’ve seen for this trip, and many others.  It was big, comfortable, and spotless, even the bathroom floor is heated. The place is about 5 times cleaner than our own house. Kathleen is as good of a host as it can be.  (I wonder if she does anything else than cleaning?)  We really wished we could spend another day here, but our ferry tickets was already booked.

Tracy relaxing in the dining area

Porch and Deck

It's connected to the main house with a covered walkway

On the next day, Kathleen had her home-made breakfast ready for us.  It was very delicious, and seeing how she kept her house, I sort of expected it to be.

Our first stop is Waiotapo Thermal Wonderland.  This is like a smaller version of Yellowstone, with some varieties.

A smaller "Old Faithful", but just as faithful

Mud bubble bursting

Patterns on the mud

Orange lichen on a tree trunk

Artist's palette

An outlet of sulfuric gas

Patterns under the water

Sulfur pool

Champagne Pool

Dead fern leaf in Champagne Pool

Devil's Spit, this looks radioactive

Next on the map were Waitomo Glowworm caves.  Glowworms are curious creatures that live in the ceiling of dark underground caves.  They drop a line of sticky substance from the ceiling.  Their bodies also emit a bluish glow.  When other insects came into the dark cave, they fly toward the light by instinct and will eventually got stuck on one of these lines and became food.

The sight of hundreds of these tiny lights in a dark cave is truly beautiful. No photography is allowed though.  Even if it is, it’d be too dark in the caves to make out anything.

On the road to Waitomo Caves

We drove to Tongariro National Park after the caves. Bad news, the hike we were planning to do the next day cannot be done because the wind is too strong in the mountain pass.  Because of the heavy rain we also did not get a picture of Mount Ngauruhoe, which is used for Mt Doom in LOTR.

We had to change our plans and drove to Mount Taranaki, but the rain follows us there as well.  Even standing close to the foot of the mountain we cannot see it. Oh well, we’ll take it as another reason to visit again sometimes.  After this we headed directly to Wellington at the south tip of the North Island.

The Forgotten World Highway from Tongariro to Taranaki

Unpaved section on the Forgotten World Hwy, no wonder it's forgotten