Goats & Trees: Just Another Week in New Zealand

From Ahipara we headed south, through even more hilly and windy roads, to a tiny town called Opononi. The only highlight of the caravan park here was that it had GOATS – yes, goats. They had five goats all strategically tied up to “mow” the lawns with their eating habits. Also, all the goats were named Brad. Craig was like a kid in a candy store, getting his picture taken with them and their beards.

After a night there we did a short hour-long “tramp” (that’s New Zealand for “hike”) and drove through the Waipoua Forest, where some of New Zealand’s oldest and biggest trees are found. To quote our Lonely Planet, “this is one for the chubby chasers of the tree-hugging fraternity.” We knew we had to see the giant, ancient kauri trees, but weren’t expecting much. But WHOA – 2000-year-old trees are pretty awe-inspiring to see. The coolest one, Tane Mahuta (named after the Maori forest god), is the largest kauri tree alive. He stands at 51m tall with a 13.8m girth. The pictures we took do no justice to the size of it – we couldn’t even get close enough to touch it, since they are trying to protect the shallow roots that keep the monster in the ground. We were able to get our pictures taken with Yakas, the seventh-largest kauri tree.

Having gotten our fill of big trees, next on our agenda was to visit another wine region just north of Auckland. We stayed a few nights at a caravan park in a cute town called Sandspit. Not to be outdone by a place that has goats, this place had four donkeys and a deaf dog. The donkeys were in a pen but the dog had the run of the park. The office, TV room, games room, and other buildings had old fake store fronts and lots of vintage paraphernalia everywhere, so it kind of felt like we were at a pioneer village/museum. We visited three wineries in the Matakana region here, and had a scrumptious lunch at the Ransom Vineyard – check out the spread:

Now we feel we have pretty much seen everything there is to see north of Auckland. Some of the towns were ghost towns at this point in the year, and we are looking forward to rejoining civilization. After a few weeks driving and tramping lots, we are booked in to a caravan park for a few nights that has a hot -mineral pool. Spending a few nights soaking in 38-degree water will make the winter weather a bit more bearable.

Andrea has been pleased to discover there is a plethora of teaching work here. After registering with a placement agency, she realized she could pick up a long-term occasional teaching position super easily. Lots of schools were looking for someone to teach for terms 3 and 4 (July 20 – mid-December), but she does not want that level of commitment or responsibility yet. We figure we will boomerang back to Auckland for a few weeks at a time every so often so she can supply teach for a week or two, and then go back out travelling. But who knows?

As a side note: we’re not sure we will complain about gas prices back home ever again. Who knows what gas is sitting at back in Canada, but here we’ve paid between $1.60 to $1.88/L. Even converting from New Zealand to Canadian dollars, this still sits at about $1.20/L. With how hilly and windy the roads have been, our van gets the amazing mileage of about 9km/L of fuel. Ouch.

Son of a Beach

Since our last update, we’ve headed out to the west coast of the north island. We spent a few nights in Ahipara, a cute coastal town of about 1000 people at the south tip of Ninety Mile Beach. Ninety Mile Beach is a long beach (obviously) that runs along the west coast of the northern peninsula of New Zealand. It’s also a legal highway. (speed limit 100 km/h), but many a driver has gotten caught by high tides and loose sand, and lost their vehicle to the sea. We did NOT drive our van along this highway.

Since heading west, we’ve had nothing but warm sunny days (highs of about 16 degrees), with occasional showers overnight. While in Ahipara we rented a quad bike and explored Shipwreck Bay and Tauroa Point, a strip of beach that is both rocky and sandy at low tide. There are also giant, steep sand dunes that people go sand tobogganing and sand surfing down. Included in our quad bike hire was a sand board for sand tobogganing, and we both got a few mouthfuls of sand. We didn’t expect much speed or excitement at the thought of sledding down sand, but we were surprised at the speed we obtained due to both the height and steepness of the giant dunes. Who knew we’d be tobogganing in New Zealand?

Next we headed north, to the very tip of Cape Reinga, and the last bit of road was unsealed and through a Department of Conservation reserve. We saw the famous lighthouse that looks out where the Tasman Sea meets the Pacific Ocean. Maori consider Cape Reinga the jumping off point for souls as the depart on the journey to their spiritual homeland. It did kind of feel like the end of the world, since you look out on endless water as far as the eye can see. Pretty cool.

We spent that night camped on the beach at Tapotupotu Bay, a basic campground with no power (aka no heater), pit toilets and cold showers. The next morning we did the 10 km round trip hike up and down headlands along the coast from our camp site to the lighthouse and back. Besides the Yamnuska hike we did in Calgary, this has been the most beautiful hike we’ve ever done. None of the lovely pictures we took even compare to the real-life beauty of this piece of New Zealand.

On our way down the peninsula we spent two nights at a campsite right on Ninety Mile Beach at Waipapakauri Beach, where we relaxed and enjoyed the nice stretch of weather we’ve been having.

Now we are back in Ahipara for a night, with our next destination still unknown.

Still North-Bound

Since leaving Paihia, we have been heading north along the coast. We spent last night in a quaint beachside village called Whatuwhiwhi - it seems most place names are Maori, so they are difficult to pronounce and hard to remember!

We have been doing wine tours of northland vineyards and have been trying to chase the good weather. Rain blows in in a matter of minutes, it seems, however it is usually gone in under an hour.

We are now heading across to the west coast of the northern penninsula, and are hoping for some sun so we can do quad biking, sand surfing, hiking, and whatever else the north has in store for us.

Here's an updated map of where we've been:



And here we are on the beach in Whatuwhiwhi - not missing our jobs at all!

Our New Home

After a week in Auckland as a tourist, we were ready to leave after tracking down the perfect campervan to spend the next year in. She's a yet-unnamed 1985 Toyota Hiace campervan. Here she is in all her glory:

She has all the luxuries of home, including: a stove, microwave, toaster oven, sink, running water, fridge, freezer, space heater, a "living room" that converts into a queen-sized bed, and plenty of storage. Uncle Steve, we've even upgraded from boxed wine (aka "goon", 5L for $10) to drinking real bottled wine.

After leaving Auckland we headed to Whangerei (not pronounced WANG-eri, much to Craig's dismay, but more like WHEN-gary) to get organized. We spent three days there getting the van stocked up, doing a few good hikes (Andrea has the blisters to prove it), and getting back into the camping mindframe.

Currently we are in Paihia, where we camped last night about five feet from a beach, with the Haruru Falls a few hundred metres away, with the falls providing a soothing background noise as we slept. Right now we are parked at another beach across from a luxury apartment building, where someone was generous enough to leave their wireless internet connection on "default" setting so we can share in their wireless fun.

We haven't been able to upload pictures recently, as we've been away from the 'net for awhile. Here's a map that shows where we've driven so far (we've been heading north):

The roads here are wind-y and hill-y, the scenery is green and sheep-y and cow-y.

We miss everyone, don't forget to leave us comments so we know how you're doing.

P.S. Craig says he can smell Dave Lee all the way from here.

Okay, Now It's Cold!

We arrived in Auckland, New Zealand, safe and sound on Sunday evening. We were whining about it being cool and rainy in Sydney, but now it's more like winter. It was about 13 degrees during the day today, but going to a low of 4 tonight. Considering the Kiwis don't seem to know about central heating, this means we will be cuddling hard tonight to stay warm!

Today we walked all around the city, seeing the sights, and picked up some hard-core hiking boots to help us tramp through this beautiful country. We've also begun looking at campervans. There are a ton of vans for sale, but the pickings are a bit slim for our high standards (having a 3-way fridge and either a high-top or a pop-top, something we can stand in). We've sent out a bunch of emails and are hoping to find something this week. Auckland is nice, but we're not really big-city people, and can't wait to explore a bit more off the beaten track.

Keep in touch and think of us all cold in the winter here while most of you enjoy a warm Canadian spring :)