Friday Nov 12: Christchurch to Auckland
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We started the day with a visit to Science Alive, a place similar to San Francisco's Exploratorium, where various hands-on science exhibits are set up. It's primarily geared toward adolescents but still was amusing.
Next we went to an air force museum, which had a video of New Zealand's participation in various global conflicts as well as numerous planes and other artifacts.
We had a 4PM flight to Auckland so on our way to the airport (in fact it's located next to the airport) we visited a museum on Antarctica and its exploration (New Zealand is a favorite staging area for Antarctic explorations). We then returned the faithful Vitara to Budget and caught our flight.
The most surprising thing about the flight to Auckland was the absence of security; you merely showed your boarding pass to a guard on your way to the gate.
In Auckland we got another Nissan Bluebird, which was OK with me as I remembered where all the controls were (including the turn signal stalk) and had no trouble finding our hotel, the White Heron. This was another standard hotel but the shower had by far the weirdest plumbing yet. There were 3 knobs arranged vertically on the same wall as the shower head. Turning the top knob counterclockwise turned the water on, and it came out heated (not hot, but just about right for showering). If I then turned the bottom knob counterclockwise it shut the water off! The middle knob, which appeared to be a temperature control, did nothing no matter what I did with it. Ironically, the pressure was strong and the temperature was steady and perfectly set. Apparently other guests had questions about the controls because there were printed instructions taped to the wall - but in Japanese only.
We opened the curtains to see what sort of view we had and to our surprise we faced the harbor, but in addition we also had a great view of the 'firefly forklifts' which we saw from the restaurant on our first night in New Zealand.
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Saturday, Nov 13: Auckland to Paihia
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On our way out of Auckland we stopped by the Parnell Rose Garden where the roses of every conceivable variety were in full bloom. then to yet another wool products store to buy a sheepskin. Our destination was Paihia, in the Bay of Islands. It was a 70 degree sunny day so we took the long route through the kauri forest.
Kauri (rhymes with Maori) are trees which grow to incredible proportions and whose wood is prized by furniture makers. We stopped at a kauri museum which showed, in addition to furniture, carvings, and other finished things, huge planks over 10 feet wide from trees thousands of years old. Most of these were obtained from 'swamp kauri' - trees which had fallen thousands of years ago but had been covered up and preserved by swampland until recently. The oldest specimen found to date is 43,000 years old and the wood was in perfect condition.
In the forest itself we saw two specimens of ancient yet still living trees; called 'god of the forest' and 'father of the forest' by the Maori, they have girths of 48 and 52 feet. Scientists have no idea how old they are.
Our hotel, the Waitangi Resort, is the largest hotel north of Auckland, and for us it was probably the best even though it was in the standard class. The room looked out over the bay and had a sliding glass door which made it easy to get to the shore and swimming pool. The pool itself was a fancy affair with waterfalls and there was a separate hot water pool which we used frequently.
Waitangi is also the site of the signing of the 1840 peace treaty, and the treaty house was a short walk away. Also nearby is a wood-carved Maori 'war canoe' created this century to commemorate the event and which has to be among the world's largest canoes, accommodating 80 rowers and 40 passngers.
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The best way to appreciate the Bay of Islands is to take a boat out on the bay so we took the 'hole in the rock' bay cruise. The 'hole in the rock' is an island with a naturally carved hole through which the sea passes, and through which our vessel also passed.
We had encountered dolphins more than once on our trip but on this cruise we encountered a whole school of them, at least 20, and they swam around the boat for about half an hour. At one point the skipper put the boat in reverse and we looked right down on about 8 dolphins riding the pressure wave, and when they surfaced to breathe we were sprayed by their exhalations.
On the way back the boat stopped in Russel, a village across the bay from Paihia and the original capital of New Zealand. We had lunch and wandered around, then took the ferry back and walked along the beach collecting colorful seashells.
We had covered a lot of ground (and water!) and done quite a lot in the last couple of weeks so we decided to take advantage of the pool and weather and just hang out, read, consume some local brew (in addition to vineyards, New Zealand has some pretty good breweries), and unwind for the rest of the afternoon. Toward sunset we wandered the grounds of the Waitangi Reserve and watched several tui birds attempt to settle their territorial disputes. Tuis are crow-sized iridescent black and white birds with 2 ornamental white feathers sticking out from their neck, and are common in New Zealand. The have an amazing vocal range reminiscent of R2D2 in the Star Wars movies.
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Monday, Nov 15: Paihia to Thames
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Our last night was in Thames, on the Coromandel Peninsula. It's a 6 hour drive from Paihia so we got an early start and arrived around 1 PM.
Our final night was in another budget accommodation, the Avalon Motel, and this came closest to what I expected a budget accommodation to be like. Again it wasn't bad but it was definitely a motel, and located right next to the heavily-trafficked main road. Surprisingly, it also had a trampoline just like where we stayed at Te Anau. (Heck, maybe Blue Peaks also had a trampoline but I just didn't see it. It made me wonder if New Zealand has a hotel law that says if you don't have a restaurant then you have to provide a trampoline.)
After checking in we visited yet another garden with a very picturesque waterfall. There was a well-travelled trail leading to the waterfall but I wanted to see what was upstream from what was visible from the trail. It was a bit of an effort but well worth it as there was another, even better waterfall.
Both our travel guide books mentioned something called Driving Creek Railroad. This is a narrow-gauge railroad created by an entrepreneur 20 years ago to bring firewood and clay down from a hill to the potter's works in the valley. It is still used for this but it mainly transports tourists. In the Thames information center we noticed that the last ride was at 4 PM so we figured we had plenty of time, but our waterfall exploration took longer than we anticipated. The road map indicated a 30 minute drive to Coromandel from the gardens, and it was 3:40 PM. Nevertheless, I went for it anyway, driving at speeds which Kathy felt were a bit imprudent at times. We arrived in Coromandel at 4 PM but it took us another 8 minutes to actually find the railroad. To our surprise, it hadn't yet left. Kiwis are pretty laid back about things like schedules and I was counting on it but this was cutting it very close indeed.
The mad dash was worth it as the railroad was pretty neat, a reduced-scale version of the real thing complete with trestles and switches, including an unusual double-trestle with one set of tracks running above the other. We took it easy on the drive back, and finished our second and last bottle of Crab Farm wine at a BYO restaurant.
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Tuesday, Nov 16: Thames to NY
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Our final day started with a drive to Cathedral Cove. This is a beach with a formation similar to 'hole in the rock' but at low tide the water recedes and you can walk through it. There is also a small waterfall descending from a nearby cliff and there are numerous sea-sculpted rock formations. It's a fairly strenuous 40 minute walk to reach it but it's definitely worth it.
From there we drove to Hotwater Beach, aptly named because at low tide you can dig a hole in the sand just above the water line and it will fill with hot water, forming your own spa pool. The trick is knowing exactly where to dig as the hot water is only found in a 10 foot section of the beach (whoever first discovered this must have been amazed). This wasn't a problem for us as we arrived in the early afternoon and others had already dug some pools. The sea water was pretty cold, around 60 degrees, so I expected the pools to be lukewarm but they were scalding hot! The only downside to the experience was that most of the other people there were grossly overweight German men in skimpy briefs; if I had a body like that I wouldn't be caught dead in anything but baggy trunks (or I'd avoid the beach altogether).
Our flight from Auckland to LAX departed at 10PM but we drove into Auckland around 5 PM just to be on the safe side. On the way to the airport I noticed an amusement park roller-coaster in operation (the steel kind with a loop and 2 spiral rolls) and decided to check it out, and here is where I got to live the fantasy of having my own amusement park. The place was open until 5:30 PM but almost no one was there; it was practically deserted. The roller-coaster was on the other side of the park from where the entrance was and we passed no one on the walkway to it. We bought tickets for just one ride; when the roller coaster came in there were about 4 people in it, sitting up front. We waited for them to leave but the attendant said they were staying on board. This puzzled us but we sat in the car behind them. The ride was neat but as with most roller-coasters it was over in about a minute. The attendant brought the cars to a stop and said something over the speaker that we couldn't make out. We discovered soon after that he was asking if anyone wanted to get off, and when no one responded he sent us around again for another ride. After the second ride the attendant did the same thing, and to Kathy's chagrin I held up a finger indicating 'just one more'. I'm certain that if we wanted to we could have ridden it free of charge until closing time, and I'll bet there are few if any parks in the U.S. that would have done that!
The flight back to LAX was just as long as the flight out and just as crowded, but the plane was a newer 747-400 model and there was a bit more room between the rows. We also made sure we got aisle seats. Unlike the other flight, which consisted mostly of senior citizen Americans, half were American and half were German, as the flight was continuing from LAX to Frankfort (another 12 hours!).
Luck seemed to be with us on this trip, and it stayed with us on the flight from LAX to JFK. We flew on an American Airlines DC-10 which was mostly empty, so I had a chance to stretch out over an entire row; and the day after we arrived, American Airlines' flight attendants went on strike.
Maybe we should have bought some lottery tickets; with the luck we had the entire trip might have been free!
What It (Roughly) Cost Us (in $US):
Mount Cook fly/drive package $4400 (round trip from LAX, hotels, rental car with unlimited mileage)
Recreational activities 1000 (boat trips, admissions, rafting, etc)
Purchases 600 (sweaters, etc.)
Food, fuel, misc. 1000
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Total $7000
Would We Do It Again?
Absolutely!
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