Day 23: Taupo - Auckland

This time we spent the night in a different accommodation (as the usual place was already full)

I wouldn't rate it among the best places I had the pleasure to spend the night on but it certainly wasn't the worst (lake Mahinapua springs to mind).

And today it was just another day on the bus... but with an interesting stop... :-)

This is a small village called Matamata which is not far from the movie set (Lord of the Rings - Hobbiton). Unfortunately, in order to visit the movie set you need to spend the day in this area and you can only go in a guided tour.

I did a quick search around on the internet just to see what I was missing (as I couldn't spend an extra day here) and this is what you would probably see:

But I couldn't do that and all I did was travelling by bus until we made it to Auckland. Once there I went to bed early as tomorrow I'll have to catch a morning flight to Bangkok.



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Day 22: Wellington - Taupo

Today it was a short trip on the bus... for a change. We were travelling back to Taupo.

On the way in we stop in a small village call Bulls where for some odd reason all shops and official buildings are named bull something or something bull, like below... the police station is called:

The bank

parking, information, toilet, ...

and pretty much every business in town

Some more signs...

If you recall, Taupo is near the Tongariro National Park so on our way to Taupo we drove by the Tongariro National Park and the driver was kind enough to stop and let us take  a couple of nice snaps of both, Mount Ruapehu

and Mount Ngauruhoe (better known as Mount Doom from the Lord of the Rings).

Before the driver stopped I had managed to take a few good bus-shots (my skill on taking pictures on the move from the bus has improved considerably in the last week), but even so they couldn't compare to getting off the bus, and take the picture. :-)

I think the clouds improve the picture as well... it kinda looks a bit more mystical like that...

Anyway, eventually we made it to Taupo. Last time I was in Taupo I did the Tongariro crossing so I hadn't had time to do anything else, but after leaving Taupo chatting to some of my fellow passengers I discovered that there is a free spa in Taupo (and by free I mean free like no money exchanging hands), so now that I was back I thought it would be a good idea to explore this place so I asked the driver for directions to the place.

The place is a good half an hour walk from Taupo and right at the beginning of the park where the free spa was there was a bungee jumping bridge... so as I had plenty of time in my hands I decided to stop and have a look.

I even took a video of someone jumping...but I can't find it now! I'm sure it will turn up when I'm back home sorting the pictures...


Eventually I made it to the park and I must say, it was a very nice park. I good place to just relax.

Despite of the good weather there weren't many people around.

The spa turned out to be a little stream of hot water (you probably can't see the smoke on the pictures although it was clear with the naked eye).

This stream ends in the big river you saw in the pictures above, so the "free spa" is you taking a dip in the river right where this hot stream meets the river. The big river is freezing cold but if you get the right spot where the river water mixes up with the hot water from the stream it's actually nice and warm... but you have to be careful, too close to to the stream and you'll burn your skin...

It was a really nice place to spend an afternoon



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Day 21: Kaikoura - Wellington

Going back to the North island.

Kaikoura is a really tiny village. This is Kaikoura:

You may think it's a waste of time coming here... and you may be right...  unless... you like dolphins, seals or whales.

There is an area not far from the coast very rich in nutrients which attracts a lot of fish and fish attracts dolphins, whales and seals.

Most places in the world that offer activities of the type of "swimming with dolphins" will have you swimming with perhaps a dozen dolphins if you get lucky. In Kaikoura if you get lucky you may end up with 1000+ dolphins around you. No, I didn't miss-typed and added an extra zero. Normally you would get a few hundred, but sometimes you may get up to 1000 (that's a one and three zeros).

There are also lots of seals and whales if dolphins are not your thing. :-)

Unfortunately I would have had to spend a day in Kaikoura in order to go and see the dolphins as I arrived too late to subscribe to the morning trip (5 am) and the bus was leaving to early to do the afternoon trip (2 pm).

It's good to leave things out sometimes so you have something to do if you come back another year. :-)

The backpackers I was staying wasn't too bad and it didn't look bad either.

The rest of the day was uneventful, we just got into the bus, he drove us to the ferry
(Views leaving Picton for the North island)

And we made it to Wellington by 2 pm or so... despite of being in Wellington twice, I've never got to see the town in the morning. I always got there after 2 pm... well... another year perhaps...



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Day 20: Queenstown - Kaikoura

On paper, this day looked like a day to avoid but there were a couple of highlights along the way with the potential to make this a good day after all.

If you have a look at the map you'll see the enormous distance we had to cover today. I am talking about a 9 hour drive... that's what you do in the whole day, sit on a bus and wait until you arrive to your destination.

Quite a few people were dropping off at Christchurch in order to catch a flight to either Auckland or Australia. The rest would continue in the bus all the way to Kaikoura.

If you remember the news about an earthquake hitting New Zealand a couple of years back. Christchurch was the spot here it hit the hardest. It destroyed a lot of buildings and infrastructure. As of today, the city centre has been fenced and is closed to the general public and all the buildings in there are still as they were left.

According to a reliable? witness (I haven't seen it with my own eyes) you can still see a McDonalds with food and drink on the tables, everything was abandoned and nobody has ever returned because the buildings could collapse any minute.

In my particular case I had a different plan. I was going to be dropped off at Christchurch where I would be meeting Bob (a friend from when I was working in Oxfordshire). He and his family moved to New Zealand 6 years ago.

Bob kindly offered to drive me to Kaikoura so we would have time to catch up and talk about the good old times. :-)

The East coast is not as scenic as the West coast although that doesn't mean it's rubbish.

A couple of bus-shots for your viewing pleasure:

 At lunch time we stopped by a lake with some incredible views. You may have to squint a little bit for the next photo, but if you do you'll see Mount Cook among the clouds (on the background). It was perfectly visible with the naked eye but it doesn't look as impressive on the picture.

Mount Cook is the highest mountain in New Zeland (3754 m).

And a couple of pictures from the lake itself

 After lunch we continued driving all the way to Christchurch were Bob was waiting for me at the agreed spot. :-)

He had the kids and his parents in the car as they were all coming back from a day out, so we went to his place first and stopped for a cup of tea (it's good to see that despite of the distance, they haven't lost all the good British traditions) :-).

Along the way he showed me some of the effects of the earthquake and it seems they were really lucky as their house wasn't very affected (only a few cracks).

Bob is also a very keen cyclist and an obsessive compulsive bike collector. :-) There are more bicycles in his garage than in some cycling shops I've visited. One of his favourite hobbies is to reconstruct old bikes and by old I really mean ancient... from the 19th century or beginning of the 20th), he even has a blog where he goes with detail about his latest reconstruction :-)

I would have put the link to his blog here but I'm still waiting for him to send it to me...

Anyway, I digress... On the way to Kaikoura we talked about the good old days and what the ex colleagues were up to this days, then we found a place in Kaikoura where to have dinner and said good-bye after dinner... as Bob had to drive back home (2+ hours) and I forgot to take a picture of the two of us together!!!

I spent the night in a place called the lazy shag

Not a bad place and I only had to share my room with another 2 people which was good (better two than eight).


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Day 19: Queenstown - Milford Sound

Mildford Sound it's renowned for its scenery and I'm not sure whether we had a good or a bad day weather wise. The previous day it had rained all day but today althogh it didn't rain it was cloudy all day which gave us the opportunity to take some pretty amazing pictures with the clouds although perhaps they wouldn't be the ones you would see advertising Mildford Sound.

Most places in the world measure their annual rainfall in millimetres. Here they measure it in metres... so looking at it that way it looks like we had a pretty good day. :-)

Mildford Sound is a 600Km return trip from Queenstown, so get ready to spend some quality time in a bus should you decide to do this excursion.

On the way in, some Bus-shots. I'm getting better with the bus-shots, don't you think?

Toilet stop

a few more bus-shots (Here in NZ sometimes the road to your destination can be as interesting as your destination itself).

Quick stop at mirror lakes:

And along the way we bumped into a Kea (a type of New Zeland parrot)

While waiting for the traffic light in the tunnel to Mildford Sound (it takes 15 minutes to switch) we used our time wisely...

You don't get that on a sunny day!

Next stop: The chasm

As it turns out after heavy rain the water rush downstream picking up pebbles and gravels. Stones that come to rest in a rocky slot are swirled round by the current and over many centuries they have ground out the potholes you can see on the above picture.

You may be wondering by now where I got my expertise in geology. I have a confession to make...I  just read the inscription by the Chasm and made a nice summary for you. :-)

The walk to the chasm was also quite interesting

Finally after hours and hours of bus we reached Mildford Sound Village and harbour where we boarded the boat that would take us throughout the fiord.

As it had been raining the place was filled with water falls. We didn't have the nice views you get on a sunny day but we did get the great views you get from the tens of waterfalls all round us

But Mildford Sound it's more than a bunch of waterfalls on a rainy day:

We also saw a bunch of seals

Last night we asked a couple of guys that just returned from doing Mildford Sound and they said that it had been raining all day but the buffet was very good. That was their summary!.

I have to say that the buffet was indeed very good. :-) but there were a lot of interesting things apart from the buffet and the views.

One of those things was the discovery centre.

Because of all the continuous rain there are a lot of materials coming from the forest above that end up in the water making it very dark and murky so much so that at 10 metres down there is the same light that in most places at 50.

With that in mind they built this place just so that they could trick the black coral (protected species) into believing it was deeper than it actually was and make it grow there so they could study it

This is a model of the place on the left and the thickness of the glass on the right

And below are some of the views from this artificial coral reef.

It was like diving but without getting wet! :-)


Travelling back to the harbour

Finally back at the harbour

The rest was another long trip by bus all the way to Queenstown...

Tomorrow it's yet another long bus trip Queenstown to Kaikorua (I don't even dare to ask about distances). I am certainly not looking forward to that although there'll be something I've been looking forward to:

I'll be meeting Bob again!.

Bob is a friend of mine from when I was working back in Thame.We haven't seen each other for at least 6 years since he left the UK with his family to emigrate here to NZ. I got in contact with him and very graciously he offered to take me from Christchurch to Kaikoura (2.5 hours driving each way!!).



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