In New Zealand the bus network is not as extensive or cheap as it is in South America, so getting around by car is attractive. The roads are generally good, the routes are pretty well marked, and the car rentals are fairly cheap. There are usually two popular options for hiring a car out here: camper van or high mileage car. We looked into a camper van initially, but they were pretty expensive compared to just getting a car. Turns out they are extremely popular in the summer, and rates get jacked up in November to meet demand. The high mileage car option seemed perfect to us: it was cheap (US$14 per day), already beat up, and not a prime target for theft. We picked up our 150,000km+ old 1999 Mazda from Juicy Car Rentals and were quickly out and on our way. Well, relatively quickly anyhow. You see, everyone around here seems to think that driving on the left side of the road is the proper thing to do. I might have gotten used to this adjustment alone: But Driving on the left side roads from the right seat of the car (with all the controls seemingly reversed)… Well, lets just say there were some interesting moments driving out of town. :)
Our plan was to go north for a bit to see the top part of the North Island before making our way down to Wellington. We headed to the town of Whengarei (pronounced Feng-a-Ray) to check out some potential diving in the Poor Knight Islands. The Poor Knights are supposed to be one of the top 10 dive sites in the world according to Jacques Cousteau, but the prices we found there seemed to match that reputation. Turns out there is only one dive operator servicing this area so prices can be held pretty high. We decided to pass on the diving. Besides, the water temperature was sitting at a chilly 15 deg C and I had no interest in climbing into a full wetsuit and hood.
We pressed on further north to see the Bay of Islands in Paihia and managed to bump into a couple of familiar faces: Dave and Jenna. We met Dave and Jen originally in Cafayete, Argentina where they were staying at the same hostel as us. It turns out that their travel itinerary was pretty similar to ours, so we were going to try to make it a point to meet up somewhere in New Zealand. This wasn’t really planned in any explicit way… actually we were looking for a place to stay and literally bumped into them walking down the hall. The Bay of Islands themselves were cool but not overly impressive. I think that maybe we’ve been spoiled somewhat by seeing so many similar things around the world.
From here we headed further north to check out 90 Mile Beach over on Cape Reinga, the northern most point of the island. The beach itself isn’t really 90 miles long, but it is still a good distance. The government actually classifies this stretch of sand as a road, so 4x4 cars drive here all the time. They say that there are abandoned cars littered all along the shore: victims of stuck tires and the incoming tide. Needless to say we didn’t risk driving it having already lost one car on this trip! At the northern end of the beach there is a place called Te Paki, which has huge sand dunes built up along the shore. If you’ve got the right equipment, you can sandboard down some of these steep hills… not that we had the right equipment. We were content to just run downhill: Reminding us of our time climbing up and down the red sand dunes of Namibia.
With no more room left to drive north, we slowly made our way south to meet up again with Dave and Jen in Rotorua. Rotorua is a smelly town, with sulfur gases wafting from the numerous volcanic thermal vents around town. People come here to see the hot geysers and bubbling mud before soaking the day away in a thermal hot bath. We’ve seen plenty of these type of things before, so we opted to just do the free walk in the town park… checking out the exploding mud along the way. There were some hot springs here to soak your feet into, and some of them were almost too hot. The mineral content of the water is quite high here. You can almost feel the water crystallizing as it tickles your feet.
Our ultimate destination for North Island was the Tongariro National Park: home of one the best single day treks in all of New Zealand. The Tongariro Alpine Crossing is a 19km jaunt through moon landscapes, volcanic peaks, high mountain lakes, and temperate forests. This is a pretty popular trek and it can get quite crowded on the trail… so it behooved us to get an early start. Still, through crowds and all, we were able to enjoy some spectacular scenery. Hiking to the top of Mt Tongariro (an extra 3km side trip) afforded us some spectacular views including the snow covered peak Mt Ngaruhoe – the backdrop used for the filming of Mt Doom in Lord of the Rings.
Follow the link for some pictures of New Zealand’s North Island: http://picasaweb.google.com/richmosko/NZRoadTripNorthIsland
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