Well, it's time to leave New Zealand. We've had a mostly great time here. I wish we hadn't chosen Stray buses to get around (except for a few great drivers and a few locations, activities and accommodations we might not have found on our own). Being taken everywhere made me a bit lethargic and prevented the satisfaction of striking out on our own. Nonetheless I've been thrilled by New Zealand's gorgeous and diverse scenery, amazing birds, endless opportunities to feel a rush of adrenalin, wonderfully friendly and funny people and the opportunity to visit some people I knew. We'll have to come back here someday...there were some things we didn't get to do because of the season, and I want to canyon swing again!!!
So we're finally at the end of our New Zealand adventure. We've been here about 2 months and had some great times, but it's almost over now.
Today we hit Rangitoto island - an inactive (for now) volcano which popped out of Auckland harbour about 800 years ago. We spent the day on an island tour which took us from the wharf all the way up to the summit of the volcano.
Most of the island is unsurprisingly made from leftover lava - crumbly looking basalt rock which looks awfully like burnt charcoal. There are large areas of the island where nothing grows and it looks kinda like the surface of the moon.
After a couple of hours chugging around we boarded the boat back to Auckland.
The rest of today was spent rooting around for books to read on our freighter trip back to the USA. We have to get to the quayside by 11:00am tomorrow morning. Hopefully there will be enough time to have a quick email and web chack before we leave, but who knows...
The last part of New Zealand that we needed to go to was "Northland" - the spike of land pointing north west from Auckland. At the tip is Cape Reinga, where the souls of dead Maori leave New Zealand for the afterlife.
The "crown jewel" of Northland is the Bay of Islands - Paihia. It was here that our old mate James Cook turned up for a look around. They also have loads of friendly dolphins that you can have a look at - and swim with if they're in the mood. Unfortunately when we were there, they weren't. We had a good look at them though.
Paihia is also the site of the signing of the Treaty of Waitangi. This treaty was made between the British and various Maori chiefs who wanted British protection. The pros and cons of the treaty itself are still debated passionately, but I won't go into that here. However, the site itself is beautifully maintained, having been gifted to the country by a previous owner. On the site are Maori artifacts - like a war canoe (waka) and meeting house (marae) - all intricately carved.
On Tuesday, we took our trip up to Cape Reinga. The highlight was sandboarding down massive dunes on Ninety Mile Beach.
I for one came away covered from head to toe in sand. I'm still finding some in my hair... The cape itself was nice. It's unfortunate though because despite being told that a certain hill is sacred to Maoris some members of our group insisted on climbing it anyway.
On our way back, we stopped in Whangarei where Tracy's old boss, Alice is now living. We spent a lovely evening with Alice, her mother and her stepfather - who is (I have to say) a pretty accomplished artist.
So now we're on our way back to Auckland where our transport to the USA awaits. Our boat leaves on the 23rd and takes 20 days to get to get to Seattle via Tahiti, Mexico and San Francisco.
It's been a few days since the last post (almost two weeks - eek!). There's a good reason for this - we've been on a deserted island without recourse to the civilising power of the internet. This is actually true. More on that story later, first how we got to Auckland in the first place...
We stopped in a wee placey called Cambridge. The long and short of Cambridge, NZ is that they breed race horses nearby and that's about it. However, Cambridge is the location of a couple of night's free accommodation courtesy of (wait for it), our sister-in-law's godmother's daughter. Any free accommodation is welcomed by us (our new mantra is "cheap is good, free is best!") wholeheartedly, so we met up with Lizz at the local library - once we'd told her where it was!
Lizz and Chris were very nice to put us up for a couple of nights. We had a great time with them watching telly, chilling out and eating curry - Chris even took me down the local club to play poker (at which it turns out I am merely mediocre...). Anyway, a nice relaxing time was had by all and we reluctantly boarded the bus back to Auckland.
So, back to deserted islands. We wanted to do a stint of volunteering in New Zealand - similar to our Port Macquarie experience in Australia. We settled on a wee island in the Hauraki Gulf called Tiri Tiri Matangi. On Tiri, they have managed to get rid of all the introduced pests that were brought over by us Europeans (sorry...) like rats, stoats, hedgehogs, ferrets, etc and restore the habitat to something similar to what it was like before the mammalian invasion. New Zealand's wildlife all evolved without mammals as predators (the only native NZ mammal is a bat) so they don't survive when faced with such harsh predation. Some NZ natives (like the unfortunate Kakapo) are now so critically endangered that they only survive on offshore islands. There are now only 86 Kakapo that they know of anywhere in the world.
There aren't any Kakapo on Tiri, but there are a few other birds that are almost as rare: Saddlebacks, Stitchbirds, Bellbirds, Takahe, Brown Teal, Kokako and Little Spotted Kiwi are some of the species that call Tiri home. Somewhere in this pic (above) is a Saddleback. They are quite rare, but are all over the place on Tiri.While we were there, we helped with the nectar feeders for Tui, Bellbirds and Stitchbirds, helped clear tracks, clean up the gift shop and provide clean water for all the birds. We also got our evenings spare to go looking for the nocturnal creatures of New Zealand - such as Kiwis and the ancient Tuatara. We did manage to corner a few kiwis on our midnight trips but were unable to persuade them to stand still for snaps. This beastie is a Takahe. He was just interested in eating and was easy to photograph.
Altogether we had a great time on Tiri and met a large number of very special people. If only we could have stayed longer...
We arrived in Taupo under a bit of a cloud... literally - the weather wasn't great - which didn't bode well for the anticipated Tongariro Crossing attempt. Also, Tracy hadn't been well for a couple of days, so that wasn't great preparation either... The hostel were expecting a fax at about 5pm which would decide one way or the other, so we waited with bated breath. The fax came in saying that things were looking pretty good, so I signed myself up. Tracy reckoned she'd reluctantly pass, but asked me to take loads of pictures.
So the next morning I was up bright and early at 5:30am. It wasn't even bright at 5:30 am I can tell you! Getting up early is a problem for me, but this morning I wasn't going to be late! Tracy - like the trooper she is - got up to see me off too. It did mean that we got to meet a Canadian girl called Pam. She was hitchhiking to Wellington after her rented apartment was burnt down by her idiot flatmate - with all their possessions inside. Our bus gave her a lift as far as Taurangi - which is a good start.
We reached the trail head after about 1 hour of picking people up and after quick checks and a toilet stop, we set off up. After a leisurely 45 minutes or so we stopped at the foot of the "Devil's Staircase" - a steep 45-60 minute ascent into the first volcanic crater. About halfway up, most of us were hoping that there was a "Devil's Escalator" that we could take the rest of the way... Luckily when we did finally reach the top, we were blown away by the view (as well as the wind).
We had emerged into a great arena with snow-covered mountain-tops all around. It was like nothing I've seen before - unfortunately the pix don't really do it justice. We tramped across the middle of the crater towards our lunch spot - the summit of Mt Tongariro.
Once we reached the edge of the plateau and the start of the ascent, we had to don our spikey metal crampons so we didn't wind up sliding all the way down the mountain (and over all its jaggedy rocks).
The ascent to the summit was hard going - basically straight up an ice slope. If anything I was finding it harder than the Devil's Staircase - although it wasn't as far. Finally, though we made the summit and stood for a while, drinking in the views.
Getting down again was much easier than getting up. We found a huge slope and just slid down!I'd brought my zeltbahn with me which made a great sled!
It's a shame I pressed the pause button by mistake about a quarter of the way down - it would have been a good one if I'd got it all...
Unfortunately, we couldn't slide ALL the way down the mountain. We had to walk most of the way - which was a shame because after the stunning scenery of the summit, the rest of the walk was a bit of an anticlimax. We passed thermal vents and passed though some rainforested areas - which would have been better if I'd not already seen them elsewhere (and my feet were starting to hurt at this point!). By the time I reached the end, I was ready to get home as I was feeling a bit sick. I found out later that it was probably dehydration because I found I could drink about a litre of juice...
Anyway, dehydration, blisters and the touch of sunburn I picked up aside it was definitely the best day's walking I've done so far and would recommend it to anyone who's dropping by Taupo. I've taken about a day to get over it, but I'd do it again if I ever got the chance - maybe in summer next time...
BBC News. I like to keep up with news from home - especially news of Division II favourites, Macclesfield Town.
Diary of a Koala Wrangler. This is Sam's blog. Sam is a fellow volunteer at the Koala hospital at Port Macquarie. We'll be able to keep up with all the happenings at the hospital here.
Facebook. Ah good old facebook. Join up here and look me up.
