The Far Far North

Campsites stayed in : 15 (+ a garden)

Things fed up of due to living in a van for 5 weeks (part 2)

1. Having to get up at 3am and walk some distance to the toilet
2. Having to wash up in a small and dirty camp kitchen
3. All the washing machines have cold water, our clothes are in dire need of attention.

Hello blog followers. Many apologies for not posting any updates in the last week or so, very lapse of us. No excuse really have been relaxing and enjoying the beaches and the very hot sun up here. Also internet access has not always been that great.
So what have we been up to?. Well after leaving Hahei we drove to Auckland where we spent the afternoon in Auckland's largest park called the Domain from which we had a view over the whole city. Auckland was massive, compared to the rest of NZ which is all very small towns and villages being back in the city was a bit of a shock.
We then drove slightly north of Auckland to a place called Orewa which lies on a massive long beach. We had a pitch overlooking the beach and just spent time relaxing there admiring the paddle boarders.We spend 2 nights in Orewa then drove a very long way to the very far North.
We ended up at an isolated piece of land called the Karikari Penisula. This is the bit of land on Doubtless Bay that sticks up before 90 mile beach and Cape Reinga (the end of the north island). Ruth had previously chosen the campsite entirely due to its dubious name of "Whatuwhiwhi" although Chris got this wrong and told a fellow camper in Orewa that we were going to "Watchupeepee". Whatuwhiwhi was an extremely isolated place with no shops and just a beach and nothing else to do. However we were not complaining as it was really nice to relax in the beautiful surroundings.
After 4 nights here we drove back down south. We are now at Paihia on the Bay of Islands. Again we have a site directly in front of the water (http://www.beachsideholiday.co.nz/ - all that research on the internet by Ruth was definately worth it). The site has free wifi which is an exceptional bonus in this country.

Outside the museam in the Domain Park in central Auckland

View from our site at Orewa Beach

Beach at Whatuwhiwhi

Our site in Paihia taking advantage of the free wifi

 

Beautiful Beautiful Hahei

We have just spent 4 days at one of the most picturesque places we have ever been. We drove up to the Coromandel Peninsula – this is the finger of land that sticks up before Auckland. We booked a fantastic campsite over looking the beach in a small village called Hahei (thanks once again to Sheila for the recommendation!). The weather behaved very well and we had bright sunshine and no clouds. Chris even braved the sea (we found it very cold after Fiji though). The beach has perfect white sand and had small islands out to sea (it was sort of like Krabi in a small way). We spent some blissful days relaxing on the beach and walking around the area.

One day we walked to Cathedral Cove, this is famous for having a hole in the middle of the cliff on the beach that you can walk through. It really was so beautiful. We are so blown away by the amazing scenery in the whole of NZ, whilst the South Island had the lakes and mountains we are now hitting the clear white sand beaches of the North Island. We are really glad we were able to spend 5 weeks exploring the whole country, it definitely needs this amount of time.

Beach below the campsite

Relaxing on our fantastic pitch overlooking the sea

The start of the walk to Cathedral Cove

Looking back towards Hahei and our campsite

Cathedral Cove

Beautiful beach at Cathedral Cove

Our beach in Hahei

Chris braves the waves

Suphur Smells in Rotorua

After leaving Aprils we drove 4 hours further north to the famous destination of Rotorua. We had chosen a campsite that was situated on some fishing streams and was a short walk to Lake Rotorua. Chris managed to hire some equippment and had a good attempt at fishing. The site www.waiteti.com is one of the nicest we have stayed on with really friendly people and great facilities. Our pitch overlooks the stream at the back and we can have our dinner admiring the duck population outside.

We decided to go and have a look at what makes Rotorua famous (apart from fishing) and this is the geothermic volcanic activity in the earth here. We visited one of the largest areas and the smell of sulphur was at some points quite overwhelming. We had a great walk round all the different craters and pools and it was certainly an interesting experience.

Hold your nose it smells!!

Looks like industrial waste - its not its natural!!

Crossing to the Other Side

NZ campsites camped on : 9 (+ a garden)
Worst parts about living in a camper van           1. Putting the bed up every night
                                                                                 2. Dirty feet all the time
                                                                                 3. General worry over mossies etc in van


We had to get up really early to catch the ferry to the North Island. We left the campsite at about 7am and it took 5 hours hard driving (over 2 nerve crunching hills) to arrive at the ferry terminal in Picton. We had a fantastic crossing as the weather was brilliant, we were able to enjoy the views leaving the south island and the Cook Straight was very calm. We were amused to notice that the ferry was an old "Sealink" ferry, all the life buoys said Portsmouth on them.

Looking back over Picton from the ferry

We arrived in Wellington after the 3 hour crossing quite tired. Fortunatly we had booked a campsite 5 mins away and our trusty sat nav took us right there. The site turned out to be a sort of car park for camper vans and we were very tightly packed in (no snoring allowed) but it did for the night. The next morning Chris managed to get his hair cut again in the local shopping centre which is always a bonus.

We then set of 2.5 hours up the highway to a place called Marton. This is the home of our old friend April. We were lucky enough to spend a considerable amount of time with her on the China part of the world tour. The three of us always sat in the back of the coach and Chris and April bonded over a shared love of Irish coffees. She had invited us to come and visit her and we took her at her word. April lives in a beautiful area and runs an organic sheep farm. She also has her gorgeous dog Lilly, cats, chickens and a peacock. Her house and considerable gardens made us very envious. She even has tree ferns and Ruths favourite plant the echium growing. April is very open to people house sitting her property (don't worry about the sheep). We spent a very enjoyable evening with April, Chris overcame his fear of large gas barbeques and managed to succesfully cook some NZ lamb (under close instruction from April!) which was gorgeous.

Making friends with the Raji

Chris succesfully navigates the gas bbq

The back seat chinese coach team reunited (plus dog)

Despite Ruth trying to entice Lilly the dog into the van and a life a luxury in Hadleigh she opted to stay with April (can't really blame her). Thankyou very much to April for a lovely evening and meal, hope that we can reciprocate very soon.

Very Windy in Golden Bay

Camper Van Duties  (very fairly distributed by Ruth)      

Chris : All Driving, Washing Up, Plugging in Electrics, Gas Bottle turning on, Emptying Bin, Making up the bed, Emptying dirty water, Putting table up (inside & out)

Ruth : Evening Meal

We had a very  long drive from Westport to Pohara. It took about 6 hours, this was due to the windy roads (think a road hugging the edge of a cliff with a rushing river below – very common) and the weather conditions which for the most part of the journey was torrential rain. There is one road into Golden Bay and this involves travelling up and then down a very steep mountain (Takaka Hill) with numerous hairpin bends and a very steep gradient. We had to take it very slow in the lorry. At the top we got some spectacular views back towards Nelson and over Abel Tasman park.

Tired we arrived at our campsite on Pohara beach. We had a great position directly overlooking the beach and we could admire the waves from the back window of the van. Definitely a very beautiful area with a lovely beach. They had just recovered from some flash flooding there (too much rain) and the after affects of this were still there. It rained quite a bit (fortunately we had the big comfortable van to sit in) and there was a really strong gusty wind the whole time which made sitting out on the beach or outside the van not overly pleasant. We did have a walk round to admire the scenery.

So tomorrow we are getting up really early to make sure we get to the ferry in time. We are sailing from Picton (South Island) to Wellington (North Island) at 2.30pm.

Travelling round the South Island in our luxury Van

Campsites Stayed on in NZ :  8

Person being bitten by mossies the worst : Chris

 For the last few days we have (or rather Chris has) done alot of driving around the south island. After leaving Wanaka we spent a night in Timaru (on the coast south of Christchurch). We then drove into Christchurch to pick up the new camper. We then drove onto Hanmer Springs which is in the centre. It was a small town with natural springs and the obligatory bungee jump set up. The next day we drove on to Westport at the top of the west coast, we decided to stay in Westport for a few days to recharge the batteries (ours not the vans).

Travelling around we have been astounded by the natural beauty of NZ. Everywhere we travel there are beautiful lakes, mountains and rivers and quite literally breath taking scenes. Really hard to describe in words just how amazing it is, you have to see it.

It defiantly was the right decision to swap the van. We now have a massive 4 birth lorry. It has loads of space to move around, cook and has 2 double beds. Ruth opted to sleep above the drivers end which is very cosy apart from a rather precarious ladder to get in and out. The other van did grow on us but it was just so cramped and just basically had a bed that folded up. We are certainly more happy now we have our luxury Winnebago!.

Our new Van - what luxury!!

Planning the route whilst relaxing in the van (not a posed for shot at all)

View from the other end of the van

Westport is an unremarkable place but we have a sight right on the sea front. The beach is massive and wide with dark sand. The weather so far has been fantastic but on our 2^nd day here it has been very overcast and wet. Hope it clears up soon. At least we have the large van to sit in and feel  sorry for the people in tents.

On the beach in front of the campsite

We took a trip out to one of Westport’s major attractions the Seal Colony - which is exactly as described. We had a good walk along the purpose built path there before the rain set in further. So tomorrow off to the far north of the South Island to the fabled Golden Bay.

The famous seal colony

Walking around near Westport at the attractively named 'Cape Foulwind'

Sad news for us from home today also, our beautiful black cat Lucy died yesterday which we are very sad about.  She was a very old cat, we had her for 11 years, we think she was about 16 altogether. We would like to thank Suz and Brian for looking after her and loving her (and her sister Tigger) for the last 4 months.

Wanaka

We decided to spend the next night at Wanaka which is a pretty little town on a lake. We set the sat nav from Te Aanu and noticed that the road did look a bit bendy on the picture. The road turned out to be one of the highest passable in NZ (over the Cardrona Range). Climbing up the steep hairpinned bends with the view of Queenstown becomming smaller below was a little hair raising in the van. When a jumbo flew past at the same level as us we knew we were up pretty high!!. Anyway we managed to survive the journey.
We got a text from back home telling us to look up some old friends of Ruths Dad called John and Helen who happened to live in Wanaka and who emigrated to NZ 25 years ago. The next morning we found them and after the initial shock of realising who we were, we spent a good hour over a cup of tea. We worked out that Ruth had not seen them for about 30 years (still recognised their faces though!).

John and Helen outside their home in Wanaka

Landing on a Glacier above Milford Sound - Awesome!!

Number of campsites stayed in so far : 4
Best Toilet Facilities so far : None really (all adequate but lacking a certain something)
Best View from the Van so far : Lake Tekapo Camping

We wanted to go and visit the famous Milford Sound. We were going to camp down at the Sound but after extensive internet research discovered that sand flies were a real problem down there.  Having both experienced a particularly bad episode of sand fly bites on a Goan beach we were keen to avoid this eventuality. We decided to camp at Te Anau and take a day tour to Milford Sound. Te Anau turned out to be a pretty place on a massive lake (the 2^nd biggest in NZ). We spent an afternoon there looking round and stocking up on cheap NZ t shirts (ours are getting a bit threadbare after 4 months of continuous wearing  - Note not totally continuous we do wash them occasionally!).

The day trip was with a local man who had a small coach (found him on Trip Advisor – www.fjordlandtours.co.nz ). We drove slowly down to the sound stopping at loads of sights on the way including waterfalls, ice and amazing views.

Mirror Lakes on the way to Milford Sound

Lake Gunn - watch out for the sand flies

Climbing down to admire some ice

At around lunch time we boarded a small boat for the main attraction – the Sound (apparently geographically this is wrong -  its actually a fjord). Call it what you like it was pretty amazing. Sheer rock on each side with waterfalls falling into the blue sea below. Really spectacular (would like to thank Sheila at this point for her endorsement of the place and swaying me to add it to the itinery whilst sitting in her kitchen in Pendeen last June). We went out to the mouth of the fjord where it leads into the Tasman Sea where it was alot rougher. We then went down the other side and the boat stopped to admire the seals and the numerous waterfalls. Definately a more impressive sight than the gorges in China another thumbs up for this World Sight (Farmers World Tour Official Rating : 8.5).

Wake up you lazy seal

Spot the cheap NZ top !!

The boat we cruised on the Mitre 2

We had an extra option to go on a helicopter for part of the way back and meeting up with the coach later on. We decided to do this. Neither of us had been up in a helicopter before, it was a tiny machine and we sat at the front the whole way. We had spectacular views flying over Milford Sound then the mountains. We landed on the top of one on a glacier which was totally awesome – such a fantastic experience.

About to take off

Our view from the front of the helicopter

Lots of ice but don't fall down the ravine behind!!

Thanks for the ride