Deb and Dan's World Tour: Kia Ora - New Zealand North Island

The Ezy Cruiza - our home for the next month

We started our tour of the North by flying into Auckland from Honolulu via Sydney. We didn't stop in Sydney, just caught our connecting flight and were off again. Although total flight time was only thirteen hours, we had actually travelled for just under thirty-six hours as we crossed the International Dateline. So, having left Hawaii at 11am Thursday morning, we eventually arrived around 11:30pm Friday night in NZ. Losing a day didn't bother us too much, that's one of the many benefits of having a lot of time on your hands.

After two nights in a hotel for momentary recuperation, we picked up our Toyota Hiace Ezy Cruiza. The two-birth campervan was to be our home for the next month.

We didn't see much of Auckland as the weather was so bad, constant rain so rather than hang around to see if it would improve, we decided to head towards the Coromandel Peninsular. The Coromandel coast is beautiful and stretches around the North-Eastern tip of the North island. Our first destination was Shelley Beach and we stopped at one of the many Top Ten Holiday Parks that can be found throughout NZ. We ventured into town, enjoyed a few Monteith's cold beers and played the locals at pool. Next day we headed to Hot Water Beach. The beach is fifteen minutes north of Tairua. It has good surf, a cafe, an art gallery but more importantly at low tide if you dig a hole at the water's edge under the cliffs at one end of the beach, thermal hot water oozes up through the sand and you can have an all-natural spa. This has to be done at low tide though and unfortunately, our timing was a little out. Plus, even though the water would be warm, the thought of stripping off in pretty chilly weather was a little daunting!

After Hot Water Beach, we spent a night at Whangamata and then onto Tauranga where we met a nice Canadian chap called Fred who also had an Ezy Cruiza. Our next stop was at Whakatane. We pulled in here to enquire about a trip to Whakaari or "White Island" as it was named by Captain Cook. This island is NZ's sole active marine volcano and is now a scenic reserve. The weather wasn't due to improve for a couple of days and we couldn't afford the time so had to pass on a boat trip to explore the island. Apparently, the inner crater has a moon-like landscape and steam escaping from vents, bubbling pools of black mud and blitzed tree trunks. The streams at the sea's edge are hot enough to boil an egg but we would see more things like this later on in our trip.

From here we continued to Rotorua. Again, staying at a Top Ten, we booked in for two nights. The town was fairly near to the site so we took advantage of this and ventured out for beers and some pub grub. By this time, Dan and I had invested in some rather attractive anoraks so got wrapped up for a night on the town.

Within Rotorua, there are a number of places of interest, Hells Gate Thermal Reserve, Wai Ora Spa, Orakei Korako Cave and Mount Tarawera but Danny and I chose to visit Te Puia. Meaning geyser or volcano, Te Puia overlooks the Whakarewarewa Geothermal Valley. Due to the thinness of the earth's crust at this point, there are some amazing displays of thermal activity. To read more about Te Puia and its history, visit http://www.tepuia.co.nz/

You'll see what we saw in the photographs below. It was unbelievable to think that none of what we were seeing was being created by man or machine. The smell of sulphur at the park and throughout Rotorua is, well, interesting but honestly not too offensive. During our time at Te Puia, we also saw a Maori culture performance including a concert which was beautifully given and very melodic.

From Rotorua, we headed to Hamilton for the night before making our way the next day to see the Glowworm Caves at Waitomo. Unfortunately, you're not allowed to take pictures inside the caves so we can't show you what it was like but it was pretty impressive. We made our way in a guided boat through a series of caves and saw glowworms shining blue and bright from the ceilings. Prior to this of course, there was the small matter of young Daniel's Birthday. We decided to bail out of the van for a night and treat ourselves to a motel, mainly for a bit of a comfort but also to try and get decent internet or ESPN so we could watch the England game. We found the very comfortable Barclay Motel in Hamilton and although we couldn't find the game neither on the TV nor on the net, we enjoyed our stay immensely and our hosts, Margie and Neil, treated us to a free cooked breakfast for Dan's Birthday which was much appreciated.

The next stop was Lake Taupo after a bit of a mammoth drive. We stayed at Debretts Holiday Park which was nice and had pretty good views of the lake if you stood on your tiptoes and crooked your neck a little. We had one night here, chilled, did some laundry, went out for pizza, saw a couple more Ezy Cruizas and gave the customary beep, beep, wave. From Taupo, we went to Huka Falls and the Aratiatia Dam. After having seen both, we headed off towards Napier where we spent just one night before heading for Wellington which would be the end of our North island tour.