Joe & Karen McDermott - Travels: NZ

8th November

We took an early morning flight to Auckland from Coolangatta. It was full, but as good as any cheap flight could be so we weren't unhappy.

When we got there it was raining, and this was to be the backdrop for much of our trip. If it wasn't raining it was generally overcast and miserable looking.

We got a couple of NZ phone SIMs at the airport (tip - they are cheaper at the airport as you don't pay the GST) and then picked up the hire car (Corolla) before we checked into the Adina hotel.

As an apartment hotel it's nothing spectacular, just a bedsit really but comfortable enough.

After settling in we took a walk around the area and ended up in the Brew on Quay Street where we each had a gorgeous “Porter and Angus” pie with a couple of special beers 😁

9 November

We just went for a walk around the quay area. Most of this we'd seen before, but it was nice knowing where we were going.

Interesting boats were seen.

New Zealand obviously takes the whole PC thing quite seriously!

The engineering on this tilt bridge was pretty cool. Built in the UK (and assembled here) it has 120 tons of concrete as a counterweight and the bridge could be lifted with just a 15hp electric motor.

Cool!

And then there is the ever present wry NZ humour.

We called into the Maritime museum and had a thoroughly fun time in there. It's a really interesting and involving place to be.

Yes - the America's Cup featured large!

On our way back "home" we called into the Brew pub for a stout (gotta try everything we can) and a wine.

A truly excellent stout, it looks like Guinness but tastes differently.

Later that day we had dinner at The Chamberlain and took advantage of their special offer - burgers and $6 beers/wines.

The Chamberlain pub - a pretty nice place to be.

10 November

Driving to Lake Taupo the next day was a less than pleasant experience as we had to take the freeway and contend with aggressive drivers and crap freeway scenery, but we survived OK.

We decided to stop off in Hamilton for lunch. I can't say that the town is an appealing one but it is easy to get around and park up and there at the Waikato Museum we came across a statue of Richard O'Brien in his role as Riff Raff in the Rocky Horror Show. He used to have a hairdressers there.

VU Thermal Lodge was our home for the next four nights and it came complete with our own natural heated spa. :)

It wasn't the very height of luxury, but it was OK and Laura and Jeff were already ensconced in the unit next door.

The pictures above and below show the view from the public deck to the lake - pretty cool eh?

Fish and chips was our supper and drinks were had!

11 November

We woke up to a wet and miserable day and Laura and Jeff were busy doing some reorganisation with their van so we spent the morning just walking around the town.

Our first stop was a drive into town to check out the boat harbour and have a look at what we could see of the history of the place. This included a redoubt built up on the headland overlooking the Waikato River. Not much to see now, but it was interesting to see where they chose to put their strong point.

The Museum was nearby and it gave us even more information on the history of the place. It was all pretty interesting stuff and recommended on a wet day!

We did a little shopping for dinner and ended up meeting Laura and Jeff in the Crafty Trout brewery where we enjoyed a couple of very tasty beers.

Laura and Jeff with their drinks and my very fruity looking IPA on the table. Tasty!

12 November

Tongariro NP and Whakapapa village was the next day's destination as we wanted to see something of the wilder side of the North Island.

It rained.

We ignored the rain and did the loop walk to Taranaki Falls which allowed us to see different types of environments from rainforest to the open top of the old volcanic lava flows.

The rain was a good thing when it comes to waterfalls though and we saw some spectacular flows.

We got back to the Whakapapa and wanted to get a warming coffee, but everything closed. So we ate the sandwiches we had brought in a shelter and had to wait for a coffee in a café on the drive back.

We had clearing skies and a beautiful scenic view over Lake Taupo on our way back.

Dinner that night was in the in Sorrento restaurant where we celebrated Laura's birthday in a couple of week's time. It was a pretty good meal and the staff and everything was excellent.

Getting back we decided to put a dent in the beer and wine and we had a late night chatting on the deck.

13 November

We had a late and lazy start to today. Partly just being relaxed and partly due to the washing we needed to catch up on. I'm not going to mention that we may have felt seedy after the late night before!

It wasn't raining so we took a walk along the foreshore towards town and came across a local market where we enjoyed breakfast and checked out a few craft things.

A building nearby was a pumphouse but it looked as if it might be a toilet - this sign was put up to inform any disappointed and desperate people!

Love this Kiwi humour yet again.

We had booked a Huka Falls cruise and that took up most of the rest of the day.

The pics below are a bit out of sequence, but you will get a picture of just how amazing the place was. Just fantastic!

Karen and me with the Falls in the background.

Laura and Jeff.

The whole area was buried in a thick layer of volcanic material and these cliffs show just some part of that.

And a little "Ahh" moment, we found a family of black swans just swimming around looking cute.

Aaaahhhh!

The swan serenity contrasts with the jet boat rides.

As you can see from the river above, it was full and flowing well - we were anticipating some pretty special falls.

Our first sight didn't disappoint.

Almost 300,000 litres a second flow over these falls. The word "Huka" means "foam" in Maori and you can see why they called it that.

The next few pics are expanding upon this.

Back at the dam wall we watched them open the gates in the dam to let water thrash through the gully.

You may recognise it as the place where they filmed the hobbits in barrels being tossed around in the rapids.

Some before and after pics here.

14 November

Today we left Laura and Jeff in Taupo and commenced a drive to Napier where we had booked into a really nice Airbnb.

On the way there we stopped off to take a walk around The Craters of the Moon. This is an area where the hot core of the earth is close to the surface and it boils water in subterranean strata and it emerges as clouds or jets of steam.

It's a spooky place! The odd bubbling mud pool and the scent of sulphur make it a bit daunting really. That, and the signs dotted around the place, make it feel like you could fall through the surface crust and boil to death.

We stopped halfway to Napier to check out Waipunga Falls and to eat a sandwich. The weather was overcast and threatening, but the falls were cool to see.

Waipunga Falls

The Airbnb was a bungalow in the garden of a house up on Hospital Hill (named because there used to be a hospital there!) and it was a delightful place.

The owner was really nice and helpful and we felt right at home.

The pic below was taken on part of our walk around - lovely views from Hospital Hill!

Hospital Hill is a bloody steep hill but we decided to walk down to West Quays to check out the bars and restaurants. Sadly most of them are closed on a Monday, but we ended up enjoying drinks at the Gin Trap before walking "home".

The pic below shows the view over the quay area from our table at the Gin Trap.

That when the steepness of the Hill really became apparent. Much of it is too steep to walk (or drive) so you have to climb steps - all 179 of them.

We were knackered!

15 November

Today we decided to do a bit of the Esplanade walk and see if we could spot the statue of Pania of the Reef.

We came across this statue which was actually pretty cool. It's not Pania though - that statue was actually removed while they are doing some renovations to the area, but this one is still pretty cool.

We came across the National Aquarium and went in for a walk around to check it out.

This pic is showing a couple of divers feeding the fish and entertaining the kids. It's all good stuff.

They had a penguin pool with Fairy Penguins, and a couple of them surfing the inflow to the pool, but no blue penguins.

Leaving the town we took a drive to Cape Kidnappers - just because it had a cool name.

It's a pretty place too and there are a couple of gannet colonies if you want to check out piles of guano - we didn't bother with them.

Leaving the Cape we headed home to get something to eat for lunch before deciding to take in a couple of wineries.

We had a delightful time at the Mission Winery. It was built in 1851 as a mission by monks of the Society of Mary (the Marists) and they created gardens to support them with food and a vineyard for something to go with the food.

It's the oldest winery in NZ and impressive.

We both enjoyed our wine tasting!

So we decided to find another one that sounded good, but on the way I lost concentration and smashed up the hire car so we had to hand around waiting for a tow truck.

Bugger.

This shows the remains of the car - we were lucky that the vehicle that hit us just ripped the front off our car and didn't actually impact us straight on.

Everybody there was just so kind and helpful. Even the bloke that I pulled out in front of. We had lots of people pull up to see if we were OK and to offer us a lift if we needed it.

Even the policewoman was kind and helpful.

We are loving New Zealand!

16 November

We had no transport and we needed to print off the claim forms for the hire company so we decided to take a walk around Napier.

Our host at the Airbnb offered to drive us down to town and said to call him to pick us up when we were finished. I love the generosity of Kiwi people!

So he dropped us off at the library where we printed/completed/scanned and emailed the crash information to the hire company. All very efficient and fast and largely free,

After that we just wandered around the town. It has a whole heap of Art Deco buildings - apparently more than anywhere else in the world. The town was flattened by an earthquake and the fire that followed it in 1931 so everything there dates from 1932 onwards.

Karen found herself a street that just called her to be there!

It's a lovely place and was spoiled only by the fact that a cruise ship had pulled in so the town was awash with tourists.

Coffee was a queuing disaster and lunch (in an Irish pub) was busy, but I suppose the town thrives on these visitors (and us I reckon) so I shouldn't complain.

We picked up some shopping and called our host and he drove down immediately to pick us up. On the way back we got a phone call telling us that our replacement car was almost there (they delivered it to our door, or at least as close as they could get) so we took delivery of a replacement Corolla and were happy indeed.

17 November

We left the next morning to drive to Wellington after saying goodbye to our host.

We took a slightly roundabout route that avoided the freeway and Google Maps guided us to our next Airbnb which was just outside the city in Mt Cook.

We were the first "guests" there and everything was in excellent order and of excellent quality. We had landed on our feet again!

Our hosts stayed very much out of the way, but that was great.

18 November

We went for a walk around the city as the day seemed to be a fine one. We're not overly impressed with Wellington, but everywhere has some decent places to see.

Our first stop was at the War Memorial. Sadly the actual museum was closed for "seismic works" which we took to be earthquake protection work, but the gardens outside were really nice and well cared for.

You'll have to zoom in to read this but it is a dedication to all those who served.

The gardens had some interesting works too.

Moving on from there we found a street where any Labour voter would be choking - it made me smile though.

We moved on through the city and reached the waterfront via some well thought out public spaces.

Check out the hand on the roof of this building!

Would you believe that they had a monument to the All Blacks?

This is the view across part of the harbour from the waterside walk.

Lovely

And Karen on part of the walk.

We headed off to the cable car ride as it promised an easy way to get up to the top of the hills surrounding the land side of Wellington and some great views as well.

We weren't disappointed.

The cable car opened in 1902 and they still run the same rolling stock.

Nice.

The view from the top was not quite as spectacular as we had hoped, but it was still pretty nice.

You can see the Wellington cricket oval just below us there.

We had expected to cable car it down again, but the Botanical Gardens started up at the top and went down the hill to the city so we walked back down.

The Gardens are not really very good, until you get to the rose gardens which were great.

Dinner that night was in the only Welsh pub in the southern hemisphere. While the Shepherd's Pie was pretty good I'd have to say that Welsh pubs are never going to get close to Irish pubs for atmosphere and decent beer.

It had started raining too so that may have influenced my view on things.

19 November

Raining again today but we just had to take a drive up Mt Victoria to check it out. After all, it features on every tourist pamphlet about Wellington!

The views, on a dry day, would be really worth the effort - even our wet day gave us something great to check out.

This is the "Time Gun" which was supposed to be fired at a set time every day.

We left Mt Victoria and drove down to the waterfront to take a walk around the Te Papa museum. Their Gallipoli installation was just awe-inspiring. So much so that we both forgot to take any pictures,

I'd rate it as an absolute must do!

They did have some other interesting exhibits - John Britten's hand made race bike for example.

Just gorgeous and VERY impressive.

While the Aussies have Phar :Lap's hide mounted on a structure and his heart in a glass case the Kiwis have his skeleton.

Hmmm.

Dinner that night was in restaurant recommended to us by our hosts - Bebemos, a Brazilian restaurant and it was just superb. Easily the best meal we've had in a long while.

More Kiwi humour - "A.K.A The Big Bastard"

Love it.

We spotted this on our walk to the restaurant.

And Karen inside this really great restaurant.

20 November

The next day we set off for the 8 hour long drive to Auckland.

Nothing much to say about this - just freeways etc. although the freeway out of Wellington went from a 8 lane highway to 6 then 4 and then 2 lanes on country roads fairly quickly. It made the scenery more accessible though.

21 November

We'd booked into our Airbnb and found it to be a good one. Really close to the waterfront and comfortable.

Today we caught up with Laura and Jeff and wandered around the waterfront, dodging showers and drinking in pubs. They'd caught the train in so it wasn't an issue with driving.

We found a few quirky drinks too!