Exploring New Zealand From The Left

Midwestdrifter

Engineer In Residence
Kiwis, Here we come! Well, actually we are already in NZ.

This is a continuation of our adventure from Australia. See this thread or our blog for the first part.

I will be posting up the first installment of our NZ travels shortly. We anticipate being in NZ for 6-9 months, basically until our money runs out.

Stay Tuned!
 

Midwestdrifter

Engineer In Residence
A Change of Scenery

After the van had officially departed Australia, we were free to make our own way there.  We booked a flight  on Emirates to Auckland.  An interesting  and important note.  When visiting NZ you MUST have a return flight booked with the  following exceptions; Your visa is a work or residency type, or lists “no onward travel required” in the endorsements.  Our visas are long stay types, and we opted to provide proof of financial support instead  of a onward travel ticket.  However, they customs officer did not list “no onward travel required”. So we had a last minute rush to book a refundable ticket before the check in closed!  Those are amazingly expensive. 

We took an early morning flight, so we were up and out by 6am for the long drive to the airport (Melbourne has bad airport access).  By the afternoon we were working our way through NZ customs and  biosecurity.  We packed a decent bit  of food, taking care to avoid specifically prohibited items.  After an inspection we made it through with nothing being seized. 

Airline food.  This is probably the most complex breakfast we have had  in years. 
 

The international entryway is surrounded by intricate Maori carvings.  The Maori are the native people of NZ, and have lived here since about 1100AD.


An introduction to the strange NZ native plants.


The Britomart train station in Auckland Central is underground.  When walking above we noticed these strange skylight light structures.  From below, they are inverted funnels with a reflective suspended  orb.  They provide diffuse lighting for the entire station, and look really cool to boot.


Exhausted from all the traveling, queuing, and form filling; we settled into our AirBnB room on Auckland’s North Shore, and started the long wait.
 

Midwestdrifter

Engineer In Residence
Auckland on Foot

While we waited for the van to be released, we took some time to enjoy Auckland.  We opted for public transit, as Auckland's PT system is good, and prices are reasonable.  This still meant a good bit of walking, but that is a good thing.

The first major outing we made was to the Auckland Sky Tower.  At around 300 meters tall (the lookout is much lower), this tower is easily visible from most of Auckland.  It has an observation deck about 50 floors up, and a rotating restaurant above that.  Tickets to the tower are about $30 per person, but a reservation and $30 per person meal at the restaurant give you the same access.  So we opted for food and a view.  The main reason for visiting the tower, was that it overlooked the wharf where the van was supposed to be unloaded.

Here is our ship (viewed from the bridge), just about finished unloading its cargo. 
 

Here is the Auckland Central Business District (CBD) from the harbor bridge. The Sky Tower is at the center.


It is really a neck-cramping look from below.


We thought the van was in the crowd of cars below, but we couldn’t seem to find it.




There were quite a few interesting sights below, as our table completed its 360 degree loop.






We finished with desert, and headed for the ferry terminal.


Unable to find the van, we hopped on the Devonport Ferry to cross the harbor instead of the bus.  As we rounded the corner, something big and blue caught our eye.  Can you spot it?


It was hiding behind a large container crane.  There it is, parked, waiting for the various government-mandated inspections to be completed.






On our way back to the room, we took a detour to North Head.Lying at the entrance to the harbor, this hill was fortified to protect from attacks during WWI and WWII.Now all the remains is some tunnels, a few barracks, and concrete bunkers.Well, and excellent views, of course.Like most of the hillsin this area, it is a long-extinctvolcano.









A little ways off shore is Rangitoto, Auckland’a newest island, about 800 years old.














While were were visiting North Head, we got to see Trans Future 7 depart Auckland for its next port.
 
 

Midwestdrifter

Engineer In Residence
MOTAT and Rangitoto

As the van’s clearance dragged on, we continued to enjoy Auckland and the surrounding areas. Our next major stop was MOTAT, the Museum of Transportation and Technology.  Pictures don’t really do some of the displays justice.  Everything from huge steam engines to a hangar packed with aircraft.

Massive sea plane anyone?  I wouldn’t mind retiring to one of these.


The two campuses are linked by a very classic tram (trolley) which was rescued from Melbourne's previous tram system and restored.




The next day we took the ferry to Rangitoto.  We had originally wanted to go the day before, but our bus never showed up!  Apparently the rail worker union was on strike, so buses were diverted to cover the shortfall. 

Rangitoto is the newest island in NZ, and still shows plenty of signs of its violent volcanic birth.  Starting as a hot spot in the upper mantle, a blob of magma rose to the surface in a few hours, setting off an eruption that raised the seafloor, and formed a the nearly perfect cone of Rangitoto.
 

Remains of a previous military outpost dot the island.  This is the toilet entry arch.  The toilets were just seats over the ocean.




Plants have made huge steps towards transforming this once-barren island.  On high ground, the nearly bare lava flows remain, though not for long.  A triple threat combo of lichens, moss, and alpine plants break down the rock, and start forming topsoil.  In less than 800 years, the island has  become a forest haven.  Invasive pests such as rats and hedgehogs have been eliminated here, and it is a wildlife refuge.














The view from the top was excellent.  Here is the crater, just starting to fill in.  Less than 50 years ago this was not much more than bare rock.
 





We also spotted a family of quail wandering about on the trail.




On the “back” side of the island, a partially-collapsed lava tube or cave is open to exploration.












On the way back we spotted the van again, still waiting, with less company than before.


Lots of boat and air traffic to be seen.  Several of the islands are inhabited.




It was just a little windy!
 

Midwestdrifter

Engineer In Residence
Other than the bumble bees covering the windshield, it's been pretty good insect wise. The sand flies are annoying. Unlike Australian ones, they are too big to get through the screens!

There is barely any mosquitoes, and no flies have tried to fly up my nose yet! I haven't needed to break out the fly net either.


With the number of tourists and camper vans here, we don't seem to draw much attention. Though we got our first NZ police stop last week. This was the standard foreign plate stop. No stops for the "driver" using her phone in NZ... Yet...
 

glasseye

Well-known member
Nice to see Canada’s Pride overhead there. Original engine version, too. :thumbup:
Hope you have a better time there than I did last year. I lasted 8 days.
 

Midwestdrifter

Engineer In Residence
Nice to see Canada’s Pride overhead there. Original engine version, too. :thumbup:
Hope you have a better time there than I did last year. I lasted 8 days.
This will supposedly be a one in four dry summer. We have still had to change locations a few times to escape the rain. Thankfully the mountains mean there is usually a rain shadow...somewhere.

It has been great thus far, just getting started though.
 

Midwestdrifter

Engineer In Residence
Reunited!

By Jen.

I don’t know about you, but I really enjoy sleeping in my own bed and being at my own home. The van has truly become our home. And, the process of shipping feels like forever, especially when you aren’t sure when it will be released back to you. As Jonathan mentioned in a previous post, we got to see the van pretty quickly, but it sat around waiting for inspections. First, our shipping agent wasn’t aware she needed to schedule the inspections (normally they happen automatically), but since we had shipped personal effects in the van and submitted the MPI request ourselves, we weren’t sure if it would happen automatically or not. So while we were walking around MOTAT, I was emailing back and forth with our agent to make sure it got scheduled. Then, Friday afternoon, we received an MPI BACC saying the van itself had passed inspection, but they couldn’t get under the bed and to schedule that with Intergroup. My shipping agent got right on that this time, so we hoped the van would be ready for pickup Monday (they don’t work over the weekends).


https://www.blogger.com/null
While we were waiting, we visited One Tree Hill, an extinct volcanic crater that had remnants of the Māori fortifications on it. Apparently it is also a working sheep farm.


https://www.blogger.com/null
The thing I was most excited about was being able to play Ultimate Frisbee for the first time in about 4-5 years, I think. Probably 2nd time in at least 10 years. I was definitely not in shape for that much running, but at least I wasn’t as terrible playing as I thought would be.

Monday came and went and not a single word. So, Tuesday, becoming impatient, I started emailing everyone I could find to figure out what the status was. One of the contacts was an MPI agent, and she said that when she had inspected it, she didn’t have the code for getting under the bed (etc., reiterating what had been said in the BACC). I ended up telling her the code, and she ended up calling the crew who was supposed to inspect it to make sure they knew. Sure enough, one hour later, we were informed that we had cleared the inspections! Finally! If we hadn’t shipped anything in the van, or if the codes for the locks had been properly communicated, then we would have been able to pick up the van on Friday (assuming our payments had cleared by then, which they hadn’t).

As it was, the van was ready to pick up from the wharf on Tuesday, but the issue was the transporters (to get the van from the wharf to the entry certifier) need at least a half-day warning to do the tow. We didn’t get clearance until after 1 pm, but I had been working with the transport agency, keeping them informed. So, they kindly picked up the vehicle by the of Tuesday from the wharf so that it wouldn’t be charged storage fees. Then, delivered it to the certifier on Wednesday (13-Dec). So Jonathan and I rode public transportation for 1.5 hours to go meet the van and get it certified.



The van at the certifiers. It had lots of stickers and flags on it from the shipping process (flags removed).

The certification went decently well. We found out that we didn’t have to pay Road User Charges (RUC), which was a decent chunk of the budget (you pay $68 per 1000 km, and we were estimating 15000 km here). Since the van had been dropped off before we arrived, we had a hard time finding the key. No one knew where it was. Plus, all of our stuff had been removed from storage for inspection and strewn throughout the vehicle. So, while Jonathan put things out of view and preventing projectile danger for driving, I went asking around again for keys. Shortly, they brought it out and we were free to go! Yay!

After collecting our stuff and storing it in its proper places, we fueled up and then went to find a reasonably-priced campground near Auckland, as we still had to figure out the self-containment certification (SCC) for the van. You can’t really camp very many places in NZ without having an a SCC. On our way to do some errands, including finding a portable toilet for this certification, we got a call from some folks from the US that have been coming here for the past 12+ years. They were offering a place to store our extra junk that we didn’t need in NZ (like our shipping wheels) and they were only available at certain times, so we decided to head down there right away and meet them. It was good thing we did, as they helped us get everything we lacked for SCC and answered many questions we had (and those we didn’t even know we had) about traveling NZ.



Sunset at the self-proclaimed kiwifruit capital of the world.



The kiwifruit are protected (from winds, I presume) by these massive hedges. They surround each plot.



The kiwis are grown in lines like grapes, but instead of going in 1 direction, they have the branches stretch to the line next to it and create a “ceiling” of plant.



Checking out the thermal foot pool at Rotorua with our new friends.

Monday, we passed our SCC inspection and said goodbye to our friends. Sadly, we weren’t given the certificate or stickers yet. We asked them to be held at the office, so we could pick them up when we had to go to Auckland again to pick up Jonathan’s shoes. Armed with advice from our new friends and SCC-clearance, now all we needed to do was pick up a few more things and we would be free to travel as our whims dictated.

 

bc339

New member
If you make it to Wanaka on the South Island, please say hello to my son Paul. He works at the restaurant Kika.
He took a gap year (year and a half now) after high school and traveled to NZ, starting in Auckland and made his way south. I'm saving pennies to go visit him.
Have a wonderful trip!

Bruce
 

autostaretx

Erratic Member
Ahhh... Rotorua ... where some campgrounds are on geothermal land... you can pitch a tent that'll have a hot floor.

--dick :thumbup:
 

owner

Oz '03 316CDI LWB ex-Ambo Patient Transport
Haha ultimate Frisbee used to be the unofficial way that was used to get the drinking team into the official University games. They used to have to play the UF match during the day which was just treated as a friendly, but the real competition was at the pub that evening. Back in the day a mate of mine was the Waikato Uni jug skuller (oops I mean one of the ultimate Frisbee players), his PB was 3.5s. But the guy from Auckland at the time "The Worm" could do it in 1.7s, I wouldn't believe it if I hadn't seen it with my own eyes. It was basically like tipping out 1l of beer, except it was all going down his throat.
 

Midwestdrifter

Engineer In Residence
North Island Wanderings


After some debate we decided to spend the bulk of the summer and fall on the South Island.  This meant we needed to take the Cook Straight ferry.  The ferry is often booked months or weeks out during the peak season (right now really).  Our NZMCA membership lets us book ferry crossings at a discounted rate, but we still need to find an open spot!.  After a few hours of fiddling around with poorly designed websites, we were able to book the second to last open slot with BlueBridge on December 26th.  This was the only opening for several weeks.  This gave us some time to go pick up our Self Containment certification (from Auckland) and to attempt (unsuccessfully) to pick up my hiking boots.  I have been trying for over 6 weeks now to get a new pair of boots shipped to us.  Aus had a terrible selection, and egregious prices, so I opted to have them shipped from Europe.  Well, the shipper never actually sent them (some mix up I guess).  And the NZ customs service is atrociously slow, taking 7-14 days to process international mail!

So, with a week to burn on the North Island, we took a meandering path towards Auckland. Our first stop was the Taupo (pronounced Toe-paw).  This lake sits amongst a number of dormant and extinct volcanic cones, with the nearby valley being very geothermally active. 
Of course Jen can’t help but take photos of every wildflower she sees.
  






We hiked up Mt Tauhara for some views of lake Taupo and the volcanic mountains of the interior.   The track was a bit eroded in places.






Several mountains here are snow capped for most of the year.  This one has a crater lake at its summit.


The vast majority of NZs native old growth forests have been logged for timber farms or agriculture.  So it is always interesting when we hike in the remoter untouched patches, as there are very old gnarly beech and other native trees.

This whole area has a number of rivers and dams which are used to produce hydroelectric power, most feeding from lake Taupo.  Huka Falls was nearby, so we gave it a visit.


About 5 Olympic swimming pools plunge over these falls per minute.




The Craters of the Moon park (not nearly as moon like as the Idaho park of the same name) is a large geothermal field covered with craters, steam vents, mud pits etc.  Beneath this valley is as large water reservoir heated by the volcanic magma chamber deeper in the crust.  The resulting steam often finds its way out to the surface.  It is so active that a nearby geothermal power plant is powered by the steam.  When the resulting high pressure steam finds its way to the surface, very strange things can result.


Notice the lack of trees?  Well just a few inches below the surface, the soil is boiling hot.  Only small plants and shrubs can grow in the cooler shallow layer.


Every few years a vent gets blocked.  The steam builds up and the resulting explosion creates a new crater.



Hmm, I wonder what's cooking?












Most of the wildlife you will see wandering about was imported by Europeans, or the Maori natives.   Here are a couple examples of the European Imports.

A very fat hedgehog.


Pheasant


Quail


 
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Wyuna

Member
Don't forget Coromandel when you get back to the North Island, It's a great place, we had a beach front house up there, well until my wife dragged me back to Australia.

Coromandel town is a great little town, there is free camping behind the main road.

Then head up to Fletcher Bay, there are DOC sites up there to stay at, i'd then head back cut over to Whitanga and then down the east coast to Hot Water beach and dig a hole in the sand and relax in the hot thermal waters.

It's a great country, and the south island is awesome as well, most people go there and miss then north island.
 

Midwestdrifter

Engineer In Residence
The Pinnacles

By Jen.

After Taupō, we went up to Auckland to pick up our Certified-Self-Contained documentation and get some mail. However, we found out that our mail still wasn’t even in the country. After some calls, we found out that we could have our poste restante mail redirected, which gave us the freedom to head to the South Island. We had a few days to spend still until the ferry departure. Not having read much about the area yet, we weren’t sure where to go, but remembering some postcards of lovely hot-spring beaches, I thought perhaps the Coromandel Peninsula would be a good choice, so we went that direction. Upon arriving and researching some more, we found out that this is where Auckland goes for the holidays and was, thus, the busy season. So, the plan was to do one long hike there and then head somewhere else, which we (I) decided would be Hobbiton!

The walk we decided on was to the Pinnacles. While it seemed like it would be a fine day on the coast, driving just a kilometer or five inland to the mountains increased the cloud cover significantly. It was still dry, though, so we started off. Near the beginning was a max-1-person suspension bridge.



I love these things! They are so bouncy! Jonathan always warns me not to break them.



There was evidence of previous floods and landslides. Apparently these mountains can be quite treacherous in heavy rain.


















They apparently have carnivorous flowers here too!




However, the farther along the track and the more into the mountains we got, the more rainy it started to get. By the time we got to the top, you could barely see anything!



The last bit was a bit of a scramble and quite fun, even in the rain.



While still quite impressive, I think we will have to come back when it is sunny.





 

Midwestdrifter

Engineer In Residence
Hobbiton and Hamilton Gardens

By Jen.

Next day we arrived for the first tour of the morning at Hobbiton. The advantage of that was at least there weren’t crowds in front of us spoiling the pictures (only the gardeners). The downside was that it was still really busy and they kept you moving. From what I understand, the original decorations were all removed, but the holes themselves were allowed to be kept. Then they got permission to recreate the scenery. So, while not original, everything is still exactly like it was in the movies with amazing detail. Quite fun!






Besides all the cute hobbit decorations, my favorite part was the flowers and gardens!





















They even had the Green Dragon Inn, where you could get a hobbit-like drink. They were alcoholic or carbonated, neither of which I like, and Jonathan wasn’t thirsty, so I can’t really comment on taste.






The nearby town, Matamata, has embraced the Hobbiton heritage, even remaking their visitor centre to look hobbit-like.

From there, we decided to head to Hamilton, where there were some gardens I wanted to see. Plus, they had a cakery open on Christmas Eve, where we could buy a cake. Since we were away from friends and family, we thought we might try something a bit different and decided to try out the recent Japanese tradition of having a fancy cake for Christmas with your lover. We ended up finding one at The Cake Box, which had a lovely selection. We finally decided on a Lemon-Raspberry Gateaux, which had a very light texture and a nice blend of flavors.



Then, we wandered about the Hamilton Gardens, which has different sections which they use to showcase different types of gardens.



Traditional Japanese.



Traditional English, Part 1.



Traditional English, Part 2.



I think this one was Indian?



Italian Renaissance.



Fortified productive Māori garden, featuring kumara, a sweet potato introduced from trading with South America before the Europeans arrived.





It was fun to take a stroll through so many different varieties of gardens. I think my next home ought to be situated near such a garden place so that I don’t have to do the work and can have all the options!
 

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