Rangitoto and Onwards

Sunday, we took the ferry over to Rangitoto, the volcano island off Auckland’s coast, to take a hike up and check out the views.  It was a pretty hot day, finally feeling like summer now that we were back on the North Island.  We went straight to the summit and saw the view from all angles, as I pointed out what we were looking at all around.  Then we headed down to check out the lava caves, some pretty cool holes in the lava rock that you could actually climb through and end up someplace else!  We got to one that kind of looked like a small deep black hole that just ended and there was a woman sitting there looking after a couple of backpacks.  She told us that people had gone in there!  About five minutes later a guy and his two kids came down over the hill above the cave.  He had a head-lamp and has made his way through to an exit we couldn’t see from where we were standing.  He brought Dad over with him and took him back through the other way.  We all walked through another, bigger cave that you didn’t need a light to go through, although it would have been useful to see your footing and not bang your head.  We then walked back down to the wharf to catch the 3:45 ferry since we had been invited to a bbq at 5pm in Orewa.  Dad found out that Dean a friend he’d graduated from high school with, lived just north of Auckland with his wife and daughter and had suggested we all come over to catch up.  We went and had a nice kiwi-esque meal of lamb, kumera, and salad followed by pavlova for dessert.  Dean and his daughter Pearl (his wife was in Australia) gave us some suggestions on where to go up north.  At about 8pm we continued our drive north, stopping for the night at a motel in Whangarei.  We were lucky to even find one with reception still open at that hour, since we hadn’t booked anything ahead of time.  The first six or seven that we drove by were all closed up!  Motel service is a bit different in this country from what you’d expect in the USA.  Each is run by a “host” or couple or family and only has a few units.  Most have full kitchen facilities in them as well.  Also, EVERY host makes sure to ask if you’d like milk for your coffee or tea or whatever in the morning and then takes your small jug of milk and walks you to your room, puts it in the fridge for you and then leaves you with the key.  Also, you pay in the morning before you leave!

headed into the lava caves

oops! and with that last photo...I've used my whole 1GB of free space for photos and videos! So unfortunately not more unless I purchase some more space...I guess you'll  just have to check them out on Facebook!  In case you didn't notice, I've added photos to all previous campervan posts!

view from the top of Rangitoto, Auckland city in the background

Campervan Day 14

The final day...
Mom started the day with some photos of the sunrise, up at 5am!  We began our drive back to Auckland at about 9am.  It was another beautiful sunny day, perfect for a quick stopover in Taupo for some coffee and photos of the lake.  Then it was on our way again, with not too much time to spare.  The van was due back at 4pm and we pulled in at 3:57!  After unloading all of our stuff we took the free shuttle to the “airport” really another car rental place to see about hiring a car to get back to Bayswater.  They ended up not having any to give us and had us try their neighbors.  Fortunately they had just what we wanted!  A small, economical Toyota Vitz!  A tiny little thing, but automatic so I could drive it and give Dad a break after driving 4000km in 2 weeks!  We came home and exchanged stories about our holidays with John and Julia, heard about their camping with the kids as they arrived home only a couple of hours before us!  We had some dinner and then a mini planning session/debate about what to see and add into our itinerary when we head up north tomorrow after hiking Rangitoto in the morning.  Also, Dad just found out the address of someone he graduated high school with a couple days ago.  Turns out he’s only a 20 min drive north of Auckland in Orewa (a beach I’ve already been to and posted pictures of) and he’s invited us for a BBQ tomorrow afternoon!  So the campervan adventure comes to a nice safe ending...thank goodness, and the the North Island adventure begins!  Unfortunately, it will be much shorter but hopefully just as spectacular!

Sunrise over Hawke's Bay

Taupo McDonald's decoration

Lake Taupo

slight downsize from the campervan...yipee!

Campervan Day 13

It was another early morning this morning to check into the ferry by 5:30am!  Once on board, stead of head out of the campervan and up to the deck for passengers I just climbed back into bed and stayed there for the 3 hour ride.  We arrived in Wellington, did a quick loop around the city and then head straight for Napier in Hawke’s Bay.  As some guy on the ferry recommended, we drop up 2 to the east coast, stopping at this little cafe on the way.  It has some pretty delicious pastry items that were our breakfast/lunch.  We arrived in Bay View, just north of Napier where we are staying the night a a holiday park.  We rented some bikes for the rest of the day and cycled into Napier on a nice flat route along the coast, checking out a restaurant we’d booked for dinner and some of the city center along the way.  We ate at Provodore, recommended in the travel book, and it was pretty yummy!  My favorite part was a tapas starter, deep fried goat cheese balls with chopped almonds and honey!  I wanted to get some more for dessert they were so delicious!  We cycled back against the wind and I packed up my things to move out of the campervan while Mom went to get some more beach photos and tried to get the sunset behind the mountains.  Mom and Dad plan on getting up for the sunrise in the morning, since it will be right over the water.  I think I’ll be content to just see the photos.  Sunsets are more my thing, and at a more reasonable hour of the day!  Last day of the campervan adventure tomorrow, headed back to Auckland to drop it off, with possible stop-offs at Taupo and Rotorua on the way. 

Ferry crossing back to the North Island

my friend on my bike ride to Napier, just a little baby and he hung on for so long!

Napier-view across from our restaurant

The Provodore, which we couldn't find cause it had no sign!

Hawke's Bay

Hawke's Bay sunset..sunrise was better...but that's for tomorrow's post!

Campervan Day 12

Historic South Street

Tasting at Founder's Brewery in Nelson

Today the craziest, strongest wind ever woke us up!  We’d planned to get up around 6:30am anyway to start our drive north to Nelson, but we woke up even earlier because our campervan was shaking side to side almost like it going to tip right over!  We noticed some huge trucks driving down the winding roads and cars as well so we decided we’d try making the drive.  Turns out driving was okay, just a few huge gusts of wind off the Tasman as we came around corners.  It was also raining pretty steadily the whole way.  So we were greeted by rain in the South Island and then sent off with rain!  In Nelson, we visited Founders Brewery and did a tasting, I actually liked a couple of them.  The Long Black, which had a hint of coffee and chocolate, the darkest of the 5, and also The Long White Cloud, a wheat beer, the lightest in color.  From there we headed into the city center for a little walk around, checking out some of the cafes and the oldest preserved street in NZ, South St, from the 1860s.  After having a look down the main streets we got back in the van and headed to Picton where we’d spend our last night on the South Island before taking the ferry at 6:30am, final check-in at 5:30!  We pulled into our site, finally at a reasonable hour, and then walked into town to have some dinner.  The place was dead!  Such a complete change from when we first arrived!  I suppose the Christmas-New Year holiday is over so most people have returned home! 

Campervan Day 11

Unfortunately this morning we awoke to the sound of rain.  Sure enough, our half day fox trot guided glacier walk was canceled.  We could have tried to get on one of the afternoon walks but they were fully booked and on hold due to the weather.  Instead we went to Lake Matheson, as recommended by the woman working at reception of the holiday park.  It was just down the road and had a pretty walk around the lake with views of Mt. Cook and Mt. Tasman in the distance, reflecting into the water.  I’m sure it would have been stunning on a sunny day, but the clouds made it slightly less impressive.  It was still a nice walk though and instead fern coils, or the koru spiral, significant in Maori culture, became the focus of our picture-taking.  From there we drove to a spot that advertised one of the best views of the two high peaks with Fox Glacier coming down in between them.  Again, I could certainly see how the view would be even more impressive if there weren’t so many clouds!  However, it still was pretty cool to see the glacier in the distance. 

We decided to drive up to Franz Josef Glacier for our next walk.  In the rain, but with lots of other tourists, we walked our to the terminal face of the glacier.  Once we reached the edge of the forest, the rest of the walk was in the wide river bed and looked like it was so close.  The massiveness of the mountains and the glacier were deceiving and really it took about 30 min or more to get to the end of the trail which brought us to 150m from the glacier.  Had we been on a guided walk we would have actually gotten to stand on the glacier itself and learn a bit more about it I’m sure!  There were also some pretty amazing giant waterfalls coming down into the river which provided for some entertaining photos as well.  On our walk back to the carpark we passed one guided walk and in the group were 3 of the people we did the Nevis Arc with the day before, 5 hrs away in Queenstown!  The itinerary for traveling around down here must be pretty much the same with everyone!

We ate lunch/dinner at The Landing in the Franz Josef Glacier township and had some huge meals.  I had bbq ribs with spiced potato wedges with sour cream and they were delicious!  We also recognized the people sitting at the table next to us from our walk around Lake Matheson in the morning, about a 40 min drive south.  We continued our drive north up the coast and decided to stop for the night in Punakaiki to see the pancake rocks which looked pretty impressive even in cloudy darkness at 9:30.  We thought maybe we could just get away with camping in the carpark for the rocks, since another two cars were there, but at about 10:15pm someone drove up and said there was no camping, apparently there was a sign on the other side that we didn’t see.  So we had a bit more driving to do tonight and ended up at another pull-off on the side of the road where two other vans are parked, we’re assuming we are allowed to camp here!