Fly Through Middle-Earth – North Island, New Zealand

Fly by Through Middle-Earth
North Island, New Zealand

My mission was this: devise a plan to somehow, in ten days, dazzle my visiting British friend, Kim, with the scenery of my beautiful homeland and immerse her in as much Kiwiana as possible. Ten days may sound like a long time to those unfamiliar with New Zealand. I mean, it looks such a small place, doesn’t it? How long could it take to experience such a wee country? The key word there being “experience”. Plenty of visitors make the mistake of not allowing enough time in The Land of the Long White Cloud, expecting to buzz around both islands in two weeks, if that. Well, sure, – it could be done – but it would mean missing out on the really cool stuff that I believe is the essential part of really experiencing New Zealand.

With this in mind I had to make a few decisions. The first was easy – ditch the South Island. Unfortunate, as it is a magic place with mind-blowing scenery (a la Lord of The Rings – those scenes were not CGI altered), but it is not as varied as the North Island, and not as significant with regards to our native Maori culture. The next decision, we could manage to drive the whole island but it would add a lot of time and we would be doubling up on scenery so I booked tickets to fly down to Wellington instead of making the seven hour drive by car.

A great start to the trip, as the lovely pilot even treated us to a quick whiz over the Marlborough Sound at the tip of the South Island, a maze of lushly forested, nearly uninhabited islets, stunning from bird’s eye view. The gods were most definitely on our side as we had two sunny, hot, windless days here (almost unheard of in “The Windy City”), and had a fabulous time hitting the post-Xmas sales, exploring Te Papa (our newest interactive “museum” – allow plenty of time), seeing The Two Towers yet again after visiting the exhibition, and sampling the nightlife. The capital is a great place for this as most the restaurants and clubs are situated along one street.

Then it was time to hit the road for real, in our pre-organised rental car. The first stop and Phase 1 of Kim’s Kiwiana education was a stop at the Kapiti ice cream factory, just north of Wellington on the east coast. Yummmm. Take my advice, don’t miss this out. After waddling back to the car with our cones of Fig & Honey and Hokey Pokey, we headed straight up the middle of the island to the Tongariro National Park, home of our second highest peak, Mt. Ruapehu, recognisable to many as Mordor. When not parading as the nastiest place in Middle-Earth, it is actually rather stunning, especially with Ruapehu mantled in snow as was the case while we were there, even though it was the middle of summer! Typical Kiwi weather patterns for you. Anyhow, the reason for our visit was to complete The Tongariro Crossing, one of the most popular day hikes in the world, which certainly lived up to all expectations. The first half was fairly tough going, but the rewards are magic, uniquely NZ views, varying from desolate moonscape, Mordor-type vistas to wicked green and blue volcanic lakes hidden in the craters between Mt. Tongariro and Mt. Ngarahoe. Once staggering over the saddle and completing the Tongariro summit, the rest is a lovely, meandering walk down through constantly changing scenery, from rock and snow to multi-coloured heather and grasses and finally to native Kauri bush. Brilliant – now can I collapse?

Abseiling down into the cave complex at the Waitomo Caves

Not likely, as the next day involved driving way across to the west of the island to the world famous Waitomo Caves. The Caves are most famous for the glow worms, weird things that are found in most caves in NZ that have running water. They stick themselves to the roof, hang down little silk “fishing lines” and then glow to attract bugs brought in by the rivers. There is just about nowhere else in the world you can find these little guys so a definite must to visit them in Aotearoa. However, the grand event of the day for us was to go caving, a special request from Kim and one of our top tourist attractions. We chose a four hour caving trip with Waitomo Adventures, involving three fabulous abseils, two of those down freezing waterfalls and a lot of squirming, sliding and climbing, but one of the best things I have ever done, even if it did mean that we had to double back through the centre of the island to make it to Napier back over on the east coast, the “art deco” capital of NZ. In fact, the only art deco part of NZ.

The entire town is built in this style, as it was completely demolished by an earthquake (a fault line runs pretty much down the entire length of NZ, great for geothermal activity but a definite bummer for those who live above it), and had to be rebuilt at the height of the art deco movement. More interesting to me though, was the fact that Napier and the surrounding area is one of our major grape growing regions and is dotted with some of our top vineyards. Need I say more? Set out to visit a few but spent an entire afternoon at just the one, Kim Crawford Wines, due of course mainly to the beauty of the setting and not slightly to do with the excellence of the wines that we were drinking…and drinking.

Just the one night here – New Year’s Eve, before heading back inland via Lake Waikaremoana (pretty place but the unsealed road is a bitch) to Rotorua, a very unique spot full of steam geysers, bubbling mud pools and historically one of the biggest Maori settlement areas in New Zealand. If you want to observe Maori culture, attend a hungi (huge feast cooked underground in pits – yummm), see performances of waiata (songs) and haka (war dance) or purchase authentic greenstone, bone or wood carvings, this is the place. You have to get used to the permanent sulphur smell though, and don’t be disturbed if you see steam vents popping up on the sides of the road.

We hit the tourist spots here – Whakarewarewa Village (lots of Maori culture and geothermal stuff in one – good value) and Waimangu Valley (more wicked geothermal stuff) over two days and then back in the car for a short drive back to the east coast, this time to Mt. Maunganui, or “The Mount” as referred to by most Kiwis. No, this is not another snowy, volcanic mountain area but in fact more akin to Surfer’s Paradise. It is one of the main beach getaways for Aucklanders and other central North Islanders, complete with Nikau palms, surfer shops, cafes and restaurants and a wicked surf beach (Kim’s first experience of one), dominated by the much loved spectre of Mt. Maunganui at one end.

Another couple of days here recuperating and watching the Half Ironman Triathlon and then a big day’s driving saw us heading back to Auckland via the Coromandel Peninsula. The drizzly day didn’t stop us from checking out popular tourist spots such as Hot Water Beach (yep – the water is hot under the sand at the shoreline at low tide – very hot in fact, you would have to be tough to dig a spa there) and Cathedral Cove, and of course “The Best Fish ‘n’ Chips Shop in NZ” at Kaiawa on the way back to Auckland.

So there we have it – the ultimate fly by tour of the North Island, which I think hit all the best bits, while allowing us to actually do some of the cool stuff i.e. caving and hiking. After all, this is the adventure capital of the world. I think it also illustrated how much time is needed here – all of that took ten days and didn’t even include the North of the island – completed on another weekend – or the West Coast. To all of you who are considering a trip to NZ, remember to allow heaps of time and make sure you get your hands dirty and check out all of the wicked stuff New Zealand has to offer.

——–