February 21st, Tuesday,library of Wellington. Tomorrow we will take the 9AM ferry to the South Island. We arrived here after spending some time in Napier with an ex-colleague from Stefan. It was great to spend some time in a nice house with all the luxuries :-)) and not have to worry about the next camping spot.
Before arriving in Napier we did the Tongariro Alpine Crossing walk. Really wonderful ! Tongariro National Park is the oldest National Park in NZ and UNESCO world heritage since 1991. In order to prevent the selling off to European settlers several Maori chiefs (Iwi) decided in 1887 to give the grounds to the Crown under the condition that it would remain a protected area. The Tongariro Alpine Crossing is widely regarded as one of the world’s best one-day hikes.(19.4KM) We started walkig at 8 AM and arrived at the car park at 1.15PM with a short stop to eat our lunch. We did not have any rain that day but the next 4 days it would rain off and on.
We were not alone on the crossing, about 700 people during a WE day do the crossing.Stefan on top of the world 🙂Almost blown away…
Descent to the Emerald LakesFinally the sun came out and we could enjoy our lunch at the Emerald Lakes.The sun makes everything so much prettier.The snow capped moutain is Mount Ruapehu, the one with the reddish colour is Mt. Ngauruhoe. You can see the path along which we walked.On the other side, almost there…Mahuia River in Tongariro National Park.
Our visit to Napier was a little rained out but we enjoyed the Art Deco WE, the old cars in town and all the people dressed up in Gatsby style ! We walked to Cape Kidnapper’s (20KM along the beach) and had a beautiful (rainy) view of the Black Reef Gannet colony.
The gannet (Jan Van Gent) colony on Cape Kidnapper’s.The grey ones are the chicks. They will all fly to Australia in April.Wet but happy to have reached the colony and view the birds so close.
The views were really beautiful too bad the sun was not there. The reality is soooo much better than the pictures.It was named by Captain Cook after an attempt by local Mäori to abduct one of his crew.The cape is home to the largest and most accessible gannet colony in the world.The NZ pigeon or Kereru.Napier in the back, Hawke’s BayNow, we are definitely in sheep country.
…and wine country!Mission Estate Winery was established in 1851 and one of the oldest wineries in New Zealand. It was started by french missionairies.Napier black sand beach.Napier has a lot of art deco architecture constructed after most of the town was destroyed with the Hawke’s Bay earthquake on February 3 in 1931(7.8 on Richter Scale)During the Art Deco WE people dress up in 1930’s costume and vintage cars are everywhere.
Monday, February 13th, Turangi library New Zealand. It has been raining since yesterday late afternoon and thus time to catch up on news, emails and blog ! I cannot believe we have been almost 3 weeks in New Zealand. The libraries are fantastic here, they are open all days from 9.30 till 17.00 and you can use their internet, room, toilets for free. Needless to say today the computer study room was packed with tourists, backpackers mostly from Germany and France. We have been travelling with our camper for 10 days now and it is really the best option for visiting New Zealand !
We stayed about 10days in Auckland with our NZ cruiser friends from the boat Aislado, Vaughn, Sylvia and their daughter Zara. We are very happy we could stay there and take our time to find a suitable campervan! During our time in Auckland we visited the city, did some shopping for the boat and vistited Waitakere Forest Park on the west side of Auckland. New Zealanders are very friendly and relax people, “no worries” is a standard answer. Also the traffic is less hectic than in Belgium, 100KM/HR is the max. speed anywhere.
Auckland city seen from the sailing boat Aislado when we were sailing in the bay.Auckland is definitely a “sailing city”, soooo many sailboats were out that day…Waitakere Ranges Regional park, west of Auckland.The ferns are just incredible !
We picked up our campervan “Burnie” early thursday morning and friday afternoon February 3rd we took the ferry to Waiheke island for a long WE. It was wonderful. We were lucky the weather was perfect, a little breeze, blue skies. Waiheke is an island just a one hour ferry ride from Auckland. It is full of famous wineries and good restaurants, beautiful walks and scenery. We enjoyed a great lunch at the Mudbrick restaurant with the voucher we had received from the girls for our Christmas !! Memorable for sure !!!
“Burnie” on deck of the Sealink ferry bringing us to Waiheke island.We must be in wine country. We visited Mudbrick and Man-O-War wineries.Mudbrick winery and restaurant.Having a memorable lunch at the Mudbrick restaurant.…with a great view…We visited “Headland Sculpture on the gulf”, a 2-yearly event on the coast of Waiheke. We did the exhibition walk of 2km, lots of people but beautiful views and works. This work is from Virginia King and is called Phantom Fleet, a fleet of filigreed and branching vessels that connect nautical, botanical and anatomical worlds.“White bird and white angel” from Semisi Fetokai Potauainehere.Stefan’s favorite: Phil Price, Forbidden Tree, is like no tree in the natural world, it moves with the wind, creates shade but drops no leaves. It needs no water but is alive with movement.Michael Tuffery, Trailing Tangaroa, aluminum frame and rubber jandals.Views during our walk on Stony Batter Historic Reserve.Walk in Stony Batter Historic reserve.Stefan and “Burnie” on one of the many stops.Stefan the happy tramper 🙂
The Pukeko bird or purple swamphen.Pukeko bird.The australian magpie in NZ.Variable Oystercatcher.
We came back from Waiheke on the 7th of February and drove for about another hour to just before Hamilton. From Hamilton to Rotorua, Lake Taupo, Wai-O-Tapu and now in Turangi. The scenery along the way is just beautiful.
Whakarewarewa State forest park near Rotorua with redwood trees 60m high and planted in 1901.View in Whakarewarewa forest.Whirinaki Forest Park was like a fairy tale park… Frodo and Gandalf around the corner.After our walk in Whakarewarewa forest we soaked in one of the natural hot pools of Rotorua. The water was around 37-40 degrees Celsius.Lady Knox Geyser in Wai-O-Tapu (Sacred Waters) thermal wonderland.Champagne Pool.The artist’s palette, yellow from the sulphur...green from arsenic…
Active boiling mud pool.The Huka Falls or “great body of spray”, here the Waikato river funnels into a narrow chasm before plunging over a 9m shelf.
Koru spiral – “new life” symbol for the Maori
We are currently in Napier library finishing this blog and looking forward to the Art Deco festival in the next days. We will go south and hope to take the ferry to the South Island in Wellington around February 27th.
