Day 17 - Rotorua

Happy New Year. Woke up on the first day of the new year and pulled back the curtains to see what the day would be like. There was blue sky showing through the scattered clouds, so it looked like it was going to be a good day. Mazz then opened the sliding door and stepped outside to see how warm it was. - Phew!, the overpowering smell of Rotorua came wafting into the room, a sulphorous, rotten egg kind of smell. The smell is pretty overpowering at first, but after a while you get used to it and hardly notice it any more.

After breakfast, first stop of the day was "Wai-O-Tapu"(Wai-O-Tapu means "Sacred Waters") , a geothermal scenic reserve that is full of collapsed craters, geysers and boiling mud pools. We arrived just in time to see the Lady Knox geyser errupt. When coldwater mixes with with superheated steam caused by volcanic activity, it causes the geyser to errupt in a spectacular water and steam explosion. Normally this would happen every 2-3 days, but at 10:15 everyday the park triggers an erruption of the geyser. The Lady Knox geyser erruption lasted for about 2 minutes and reached a height of apout 8 meters. After the geyser, we then followed the walking track through the park, a trail of about 3km that took about an hour an a half. Along the way we saw plenty of bubbling mud pools, and steaming lakes of mutiple colours.

 Some of the minerals in the earth react with the hot water and steam to form colours. Last stop was a large Mud pool which was located outside of the park. The mud pool was about 30 metres in Diameter, and full of bubbles, steam and small eruption all accompanied by the same "interesting" sulphurous smell!.

After Wai-O-Tapu we headed back into Rotorua and made our way to a Redwood forest, just outside of town. There are many walking tracks through the forest, ranging from 30 minutes to 8 hours. We decided to take one of the shorter trails and headed off. The trees are Californian Redwoods, and were planted in 1901. They can grow to a height over 100m. The wood is not especially good however, as the trees grow so quickly that they wood is soft. The walk was especially interesting because the forest canopy is quite high, and even the ferns are high, having to reach up to get any light. Down on the forest floor however, it is quite open and easy to walk though.

Following the Redwoods, we headed back into town to a park famous for its thermal activity. In the park there were about 20 small pools, all fenced off and all bubbling and steaming away. There was a sign informing everyone to not touch the touch the water as it is 100 deg C, so we thought we had better leave them alone. Next stop we went back into town and wandered amongst the shops, but being New Years day most of the shops were closed, so we decided to head back to the Motel

Day 16 - Wellington to Rotorua

Today we head to Rotorua. We have really enjoyed staying in City Life Motel. Having a TV in the main bedroom and 2 separate bathrooms has given us all a little extra space, as it can get a bit crowded when we are all together in a small area. A casual start to our morning, getting packed and having breaky. We were on the road by 9:30am with our longest drive ahead of us. We were looking forward to a nice straight road and a motorway-get quicker to our destination than we have on the South Island. We were wrong! No 3 lane highway, but instead a single lane road with slow lanes for overtaking and you can only drive 100km here. There were so many towns along the way and we had to slow down to 50km in every single one of them. Mazz was very surprised to see in a small town a whole heap of seconds shops and a DFO! She managed to hold herself back and let Paul continue to drive. The drive wasn't as spectacular as the South Island but it definitely looks like the land where Hobbits would live- beautiful green rolling hills. We stopped in a town called Taihape which was pretty much a one street town but had a Subway, McDonalds and a KFC. We haven't had much luck with bakeries here- they don't know what a real cinnamon donut is. We did find one in a bakery and they called it a round donut! Aren't donuts round???? Once we all chose what to have for lunch we continued on our journey. 

The landscape began to change after awhile as we were heading on the Volcanic Loop Highway. In the distance we could see Mt Ruapehu, which is an active volcano and is the North Island's major ski fields. Mt Ruapehu is the largest active volcano in New Zealand. It has three major peaks: Tahurangi (2797m), Te Heuheu (2755m) and Paretetaitonga (2751m). The deep active crater is between these peaks and fills with a lake between major eruptions. The last time is erupted was in 2007. And of course some scenes from Lord of the Rings were filmed on the slopes- Mount Doom (Mt Ruapehu) is in Mordo! We were very surprised to still see snow on top of the volcano. Very spectacular! 

We then drove passed Lake Taupo. It is a huge lake which has a perimeter of aprrox 193km. It is a very busy place and can attract over 1.2 billion visitors over the Christmas and New Years period. 

We finally arrived into Rotorua after a 5 hour journey. Our hotel is on the outskirts of the town and is ok- it has all it needs. There is a New Years Eve party in town near Lake Rotorua called GLO party. We decide not to join the rest of the crowd and just have a yummy steak and salad for dinner. It can get quiet tiring driving for hours, so its an early night for us and cross fingers we will get nice weather while we are here, although the forecast is for rain in the afternoon.
 

Day 15 - Wellington, Mt Victoria and Weta

Woke up this morning to another nice day. First stop after breakfast was the Weta Cave – The workshop / museum / souvenir shop that is owned by Weta workshop. Weta workshop is a costume, special effect, annimation and movie prop company that are based in Wellington and have worked on all of the Lord of the rings and Hobbit movies, as well as District nine, Narnia, Avatar, King Kong and other movies and TV shows. Outside the Weta cave they have sculptures of the three trolls (William, Tom and Bert) from the Hobbit, and inside they have some of the props from the movies, including scuptures of Gollum, Lurtz (The large Uruk-hai that shoots Boromir with an arrow) and Gandalf. They also have various weapons, armour and costumes from all of the movies that they have been involved with. After wandering around the shop for about an hour, we decided to book ourselves into the Weta Workshop tour – A tour of part of the workshop where the work is actually done, and an explanation of how they make their props. The tour was pretty popular and was booked out until 3:00pm, so we bought our tickets and headed back into Wellington to pass the 4 hrs until it was time for our tour.

The National Museum of New Zealand is located in Wellington and is called Te Papap Tongawara. Its a pretty good museum (voted one of the top 50 museums in the world!), so we spend a couple of hours wandering around the museum. They have a lot of interesting interactive displays and exhibits, as well as some special collections and special exhibits. The highlights of our museum trip were the “World of Wearable Art (WOW) collection, - Various costumes that have been designed as art as well as fashion, and also the the exhibit on “Awesome Forces”, an explanation of earthquakes, eruptions and other natural forces that occur.

After the Museum, we headed into Mt Victoria nation park – A park that overlooks Wellington. Apart from having some spectacular views of Wellington, Mt Victoria national park is also the location where some of the scenes of Lord of the Rings were filmed, especially a scene at the start of “The Fellowship of the Ring', where the Hobbits are on their way to Bree, and hide from one of the Black riders under a tree. It took a while to find, but armed with our location guide book and a GPS app that Mazz downloaded, we eventually found the spot. The large tree is not there, as that was a Movie prop created especially for the scene, but otherwise the location was very recognizable, and our “halflings” were able to “Get off the road”, and take shelter.

After Mt Victoria, we headed back to Weta Cave for our tour. There were about 20 people on the tour, and they described how props start of as a piece of 2D art, are then modelled in CAD in 3D, and are then made into 3D objects. Final step is painting to make the object life like. We also heard how much of the art is now created using photoshop. The Weta Workshop also employs a full time “armour manufacturer”, who makes all the weapons and armour for the movies. He is genuine craftsman, and some of his work is on display in the royal armoury in Leeds, England. Unfortunately we were not allowed to take any photos in the Weta Workshop, as many of the items that were being worked on have not been released yet, and they don't want any “spoilers” to get out, like the minature model we saw being created for a remake of the “Thunderbird series”! After the workshop tour it was back to the Weta cave for Daniel and Josh to buy a souvenir or two.

On the way back to the Hotel we drove by “Stone st studios', where a lot of the studio scenes were filmed for the Hobbit and LOTR. The studio appeared pretty quite and not much was happening inside, but the large green screen at the back of the building could be seen from the outside the building.

Day 14 - Nelson to Wellington

Woke up this morning feeling a little stiff and sore after our kayaking excursion yesterday. If we were to go kayaking a few more days we would all develop abs of steel!. Checked out of our accommodation in Nelson and began the drive to Picton, where the Inter-Island ferry departs for Wellington. The drive was fairly slow as we had to cross a mountain range - left turn, right turn, left turn right turn, the drive was very windy, both up and down the mountain – In NZ they probably only call this a hill, but in Australia, I think its high enough to be called a mountain!. The view was spectacular, especially as we were getting closer to Picton. Picton is located beside Queen Charlotte Sound, a large fjord? Surrounded by mountains that slide into the water.

We reached Picton at around 12:00pm, about 90 minutes before the ferry left. We returned the car to the Avis rental desk, picked up our boarding passes and checked our luggage in. Still having an hour to go before boarding, we ventured outside into the drizzle and walked into town, browsing in a few souvenir shops before walking into the bakery to grab a baguette for lunch. We made our way back to the terminal and ate our lunch, and soon enough it was time for boarding.

The ferry was very large, with multiple decks cafes and seating areas. We found some seats towards the rear of the ferry where we could see the back of the boat (with all the campervans parked on the deck) and could also see all around – Well, we could if the drizzle would clear! The strait between the South Island and the North Island is called Cook straight, and the crossing took just over three hours. The sea was relatively calm, however the drizzle and low cloud continued the whole trip, which was a pity as the crossing would have been very picturesque, as the route passes through the Sounds and around the Islands.

We arrived in Wellington around 5:00pm, collected our luggage and picked up our rental car – a RAV4 again, but this time a blue one. We drove to our hotel, checked in and after driving around town for 20 minutes eventually found the hotel car park. There are a lot of one way streets in Wellington, so as soon as you miss your turn, you are suddenly a long way from where you need to be, and not sure how to get back. We made ourselves comfortable in the Hotel, and then headed into town to find some dinner.

Day 13 - Golden Bay (Tata Beach)

A very early start today- 6:00am.  We headed to the west coast towards the Abel Tasman National Park which was a 2 hour drive even though it was only 115kms away. The road was very windy and up in the mountains.  Mazz wasn't coping very well as the drop of the mountain was on her side. The views were great but  wasn't keen on taking any photos. We got to Golden Bay and then headed to a small beach called Tata Beach. Today we are going on a guided tour on kayaks with Golden Bay Kayaks. Because it was a tour for families, there were 3 families that also joined the tour- Germans, Swiss and British. The two guides Pip and we can't remember her name, were great guides. We were all giving a safety briefing and a quick demo of how to kayak. Paul and Daniel were together and Josh and I were together. Once we were all ready we headed down the coast where we kayaked to two islands- Ngawhiti Island and Motu Island. Here we saw different species of birds and we even saw a seal frolicking in the water. The water here is so blue and clear. We kayaked between majestic rock walls and even got to go up close to some small caves. In one of the bays there were a whole heap of buoys that were used to grow mussels on. We kayaked to the beach for a short rest and explore and then kayaked back to a more sheltered beach. Here we had morning tea of tea,coffee, hot chocolate and muffins. We had a lot of interesting conversations getting to know the different families and hearing stories of their travels. The weather was great for kayaking as it was slightly overcast and about 22degrees. After a rest for about half an hour we headed back the way we came to return to Tata Beach. Pip decided we all needed to have a race back to the beach- rule 1 you must do a 360degree turn, rule 2 first to the beach and run and grab the New Zealand flag was the champion, rule 3 no bumping and rule 4 go as fast as you can. Any guess who won? Yes it was team Aussie A- Mazz and Josh! We all had a really great time and it wasn't too expensive for New Zealand prices! Another 2 hour drive back to Nelson which wasn't as bad because we were on the inside lane. We arrived back to Nelson, had showers and relaxed for the rest of the night. Good job you can get Aussie tv over here-we've been watching the Boxing Day Test! Go Aussies!

Day 12- Greymouth to Nelson

Today we had a little sleepin until 8:30 am. Once packed and ready to go we drove along the famous "Coast Road" to Punakaiki and the Paparoa National Park. It is one of the most beautiful in the country and follows part of the ancient Greenstone Trails, used by Maori for centuries in search of the stone Pounamu, better known as jade. The "Coast Road" is ranked by Lonely Planet as "one of the best scenic coastal journeys in the world" After only a 45 minute drive we stopped at Punakaiki where you can see Pancake Rocks. The Pancake Rocks are limestone formations that began forming a long time ago where rich fragments of dead marine creatures were deposited on the seabed, then overlaid by weaker layers of soft mud and clay. The seabed was raised above sea level by earthquakes to form the cliffs and coastline. The sea, wind and rain have since etched out the soft layers to form the unusual rock formation that makes them look like pancake stacks. When the conditions are right, the ocean swells into the caverns beneath the rocks and huge water spouts blast through the blowholes. Unfortunately it wasn't high tide so we didn't get to see the blowholes. 

A wander around in the touristy shops and then another 2 hour drive ahead of us. The scenery isn't as spectacular in this area, but the roads were very windy. We have now named New Zealand as "The Land of One Lane Bridges". We made it to our destination at about 3:15pm We are staying in a medium sized town called Nelson. This is the furthest north we have been. 

Nelson is the oldest city in southern New Zealand. Nelson was named in honour of Horatio Nelson who defeated both the French and Spanish fleets at the Battle of Trafalgar. In fact many of the roads and public areas around the city are named after people and ships associated with the battle. The.  people in Nelson are referred to as Nelsonians. 

We had and early dinner in our motel, which is right near the airport and the golf course. An early night tonite as we have to be up early (6:30am) for a road trip to Golden Bay which is near the Abel 

Tasman National Park for a kayak tour. Sorry for not adding photos. We don't have free internet in our motel room so Mazz is using the iPad connected to her iPhone to type this up. We will try to add photos some other time. 

Day 11- Franz Josef Glacier, Fox Glacier, Greymouth

Ok so we are tired of early starts but today we have a great and exciting day planned. At 7:45am we left our little chalet in Franz Josef and headed back to Fox Glacier Village. We had a ½ day Fox Trot hiking tour booked for 8:35am to go out on to the Fox Glacier. Once booked in we had to put socks on and proper hiking boots. We had just a short bus ride to the glacier car park, Our guide Danni lead us on a walk beside the river bed to the glacier terminus. From here we walked uphill for around 30 minutes to access the edge of the ice. We all grabbed a hiking stick, except for Daniel cause he's too short for one. We hiked a short distance passed a rock fall area and then to a flat area. At this point we fitted our shoes with crampons specially designed for walking on ice. We then followed Danni up the ice steps. Occasionally she had to cut the steps away with her big axe. The route took us onto the ice amongst crevasses and ice ridges and lead us onto the middle of the glacier for spectacular views of the ice and lower glacier. Fox Glacier was named in 1872 after a visit by the then Prime Minister of New Zealand Sir William Fox.

We spent at least one hour on the ice. Danni was with us for the duration of the trip in case of any rock falls or breaks in the ice. We enjoyed listening to fascinating details of the natural history of the landscape. The top of the glacier is moving 6meters a day and it was only 100meters thick where we walking. The ice we were walking on was 60 years old. The glacier is 13km long and at the top its 600meters thick. The experts say that the glacier will be completely gone in 100 years. We were very fortunate to hike (The Kiwi's call hiking “tramping”) on the glacier with magnificent weather.

After we got back to Fox Glacier Village we had some lunch at the cafe and then had another drive in front of us. Today we are staying in a town called Greymouth. The drive was again very spectacular with snow capped mountains, fast running rivers and views of the Tasman Sea. We made a quick stop at a town called Hokitika where you can buy jewellery out of green stone. It was very pricey so we got back into the car and headed to our accommodation in Greymouth. We are all very exhausted from our hike on the Glacier.