Spelunk It!

We heard from Canadian Dan the day after we wrote our last update, and found out him and his friend were embarking on a two week whirlwind tour of New Zealand. We drove about an hour to Rotorua, a fairly big town (very big for New Zealand standards – 70,000 people), to meet up with them. Rotorua is a hotbed of geothermal activity. It has random hot springs, geysers, and hot pools all around it. This means it also has a deliciously eggy smell – Lonely Planet lovingly refers to it as “Sulphur City” and Kiwis call it “RotoVegas” because of how touristy the area is. This is the place to zorb (get thrown down a hill in a clear plastic bubble), and it also has skydiving and bungee jumping, though not of the calibre of Queenstown in the south island. Not to mention lots of “cultural experiences”, though some seem a tad more commercialized than others.

Even though we stayed two nights in Rotorua, the four of us (Craig, Andrea, Dan, and his pal) elected to drive west to the Waitomo Caves for what turned out to be an incredible day trip. This town has a network of hundreds of underground caves (many with underground streams) that you can do all sorts of things in, from mild walks where you stay dry to multi-hour adventures where you get wet. Guess which one we chose?

Together we did a five-hour adventure tour that involved donning a wetsuit (thick, but not quite thick enough to keep out the chill), helmet, headlamp, and boots. Our tour began with a 40 m abseil down into the caves, then a zipline in the pitch black across an underground river. From there we jumped into the river on tubes and did some “black water rafting” (so-called because it is so dark down there) where we turned off our headlamps and watched the millions of glow worms that inhabit the caves down there. It was truly a sight to see, and we had to keep reminding ourselves we were staring at glowing larvae poop and not stars.

To make our way out we spelunked through sometimes ankle-deep, sometimes waist-deep, streams that were sometimes calm, sometimes raging. We also scaled a few waterfalls while we were at it. Because, you know, why not? We finally made it, cold, dripping, and grinning ear to ear into the sunshine. The water in the caves was about 10 degrees Celsius, so by the end we were not feeling our toes or fingers very much, but hot showers and soup fixed all that.

From Rotorua we drove to Taupo, where we spend our coldest night yet – there was frost in the morning. Apparently Kiwis are a bit confused about the definition of a “waterfall”, as we did a 6 km round-trip hike to a supposed waterfall, only to find the banks of the river narrowed to form rapids with a slight change in elevation. Regardless, it got us up and moving bright and early in the morning.

Yesterday and today we have been exploring the Napier and Hastings region, known as the Hawke’s Bay wine region. Today we visited a few local wineries for tastings, including Mission Estate, the largest and oldest winery in New Zealand. We may explore a bit more tomorrow, or we may take off up the east coast. The weather has been sunny for the past two days, which means we are due for some rain. Usually our plans are weather-dependent, especially when it comes to tramps.

Here are some pictures from our adventure in the Waitomo Caves. Enjoy!

New Zealand: It's Like Scotland, But Farther!

Since we last blogged, we've done plenty of maxing and relaxing, shooting some b-ball outside of the school. We stayed three nights in a tiny community called Miranda where we had a huge hot mineral pool (not just a small hot tub) where we stayed in until the slightly eggy smell made us get out. On our last night the caravan park turned into some sort of retirement community, as caravan after caravan rolled in, full of the grey-haired nomads. Up until then, we enjoyed chatting with people in the pool from America, Poland, and South Africa. Even though this is our "early retirement", we decided it was a good time to move on.


Our next destination was the slightly bigger beachside town of Waihi Beach, only about an hour down the highway. On our way we stopped at Karangahake Gorge, which offered many different hiking trails through an old mining area. Long sections of the hike were through pitch-black mining shacks where you had to crouch to avoid the low ceiling. We carried a torch (that's a flashlight for you non-Kiwis) to light our way, although it did not stop Craig from making wild animal and spooky noises to try and scare Andrea. It's these kind of adventurous and slightly dangerous hikes you just can't find in overprotective Canada, so we are taking full advantage of every opportunity!


Luckily we found our way out of the labrynth of tunnels and made it to Waihi Beach unscathed. This was a cute community right on the beach (as many places are here) with a population of 1700 that just about quadruples in the summertime. The caravan park we stayed at here was incredible - it had a gym (with great new equipment!), a hot tub, a heated pool, satellite tv and movies in the common room, and pet eels. Even though it is the low season, we finally met some fellow (YOUNG) backpackers. Because of all these reasons we ended up staying there six nights. During the day we did some hiking and beach walks. Every night we hung out with Erik and Bjorn, two Dutchmen who were just finishing a year around Australia and New Zealand in a campervan and were on their way to Southeast Asia. Many hands of cards were played over many bottles of beer and wine. As true Canadian ambassadors, we introduced the sport of shakey face to our new Dutch friends. For those of you who are not familiar with this national sport, it is when you shake your face back and forth very fast and someone takes a picture while your face is mid-shake, making for very entertaining snaps.

After six nights, though, it was time to carry on. Right now we are listening to the soothing sound of the ocean in our campervan, as we are camped only a few metres from the beach in Mount Maunganui, right beside Tauranga. This is the biggest town we've been to in awhile, with a population over 17,000. It is also a town with a LOT of money. Because the beach stretches the entire length of the town, it is lined with amazing mansions that have incredible views. Here is a picture of last night's sunset from the beach at the end of our campsite:

Today we hiked "The Mount", a dormant volcano at the northern tip of the town. It was only about an hour-long hike but it gave a great panoramic view of both towns from the top. Here we are at the top. You may notice Craig's sideburns snuck into this picture as well:

Some of the more observant people reading this blog may have noticed a stuffed beaver that sometimes appears in our pictures. Burley the Beaver, as he is known by the grade 3/4 class at Port Stanley Public School, has come along for the ride with us. He is getting his picture taken with as many different animals, in as many different situations, as he can. Here is Burley with some donkeys. There were four white donkeys that were all brothers at a caravan park we stayed at, named: Hee-Haw, Slow-Mo, Kick-Back, and Sir Chews A Lot. Funnily enough, they all talked like Eddie Murphy.

We just found out a friend we met in Australia from Vancouver is arriving in Auckland tomorrow, so hopefully we can meet up with him somehow in the next couple of weeks. As always, we have no idea where we will go next. Thus is the life of a couple of gypsies like us.

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!