The land of kiwis, kiwis and kiwis!!

So we've finally made it to New Zealand, arriving in Auckland a day and a half after leaving Hawaii, due to the whole dateline malarky.

The first thing we did was hire ourselves a little campervan. Everybody meet Vinnie (as in Vincent Van Go!!)...



We have two stoves, a microwave, running water, a fridge, heated towel rail, dvd/tv, toaster, cuddly toy...

After looking round Auckland for a day (it's a city) we decided to head north to the imaginatively named "Northland". Worked our way up the east coast. Stopped at Waiwera Thermal Resort (hot pools, naturally) and Goat Island Marine Reserve (snorkelling, big fish, much colder than Hawaii). Took a walk to the Whangarei Falls (5 mins)...



and back (about 1 1/2 hours...took a wrong turn somewhere) and ended up, via some lovely sunny beaches, at the Bay of Islands. We hired some kayaks and did a bit of paddling around Paihia, stopping off at our own private beach...



before taking a proper tour on the Mack Attack...



which was somewhat faster than our efforts on the kayaks.



(Jen's go now) You can't really tell from the picture above but apparently this big rock is not actually part of any landmass. It was thrown into the sea by a volcano and is now resting on the sand. And it makes a nice tunnel.

There is so much to do here that our first couple of weeks were spent in a frenzy of doing doing doing; we hardly knew which way to turn next...

[Cape Reinga - the very northern-most point of New Zealand]

And at times it seemed like an uphill struggle...

[Te Paki - Giant Sand Dunes]

But we soon fell into a routine of trundling along the well marked coastal road of the North Island, lunch by a beach, see this do that, and settle down in vinnie wherever we happen to be for the night. Sights along the way included some massive Kaori trees, far too big to hug, and actually too big to take a photo of an entire one - so heres the lower middle bit of the biggest one of all

[Tane Mahuta]

Here's a little bay we stopped at to have lunch, pretty typical; blue skies, sea-shells on the shore line, gentle lapping waves, and usually pretty much to ourselves...

Somewhere around the Coromandel we found the Driving Creek Railway - a narrow gauge mini railway that some guy built himself to bring clay from up the hill down to his pottery. He extended it and opened it to the public when he realised too many people were stopping by out of curiosity. As well as to clay pits it now goes to a lookout tower from which you can get a magnificent view of the rolling countryside. The carriages were really cute and the pottery is still in full swing. Now let's see some of the rolling countryside.



All these hills and no snow... no snow? thats no reason not to hire sledges anyway!



Sledging down sand dunes is one helluvalot HOTTER than the snowy version. We were quite glad of the nearby sea to cool our bright red burning feet at the end :-)

After a week or two of this we went inland to Rotorua which smelled strongly of rotten eggs. The whole town did. In fact I think the whole surrounding region did. This had the odd effect of making Col want to eat egg sarnies for lunch, which just goes to show how his sense of smell is quite unique.

The sulphurous eggy aroma is due to the thermal volcanic activity of the region. Hot springs and mud pools everywhere, clouds of steam rising from holes in the ground, alongside roads, in fields, pretty much anywhere it felt like escaping. All pretty impressive. We tried to get a picture of a mud pool farting for you to share ...



As we were leaving Rotorua we struck lucky and found Kerosene Creek. A gorgeous place - you have to visit if you ever come to New Zealand. It's a very pretty stream running through woodland and is the temperature of bathwater. A small waterfall flows into a natural stone pool and its literally just like taking a huge outdoor bath with the waterfall acting as giant mixer taps. Picture sunlight filtering through trees, sound of running water, and NO SMELL. Perfect. This is me testing the water....



After all that lounging about it was time for a bit of History. We went to Napier. Napier is on the East Coast and was pretty much destroyed by an earthquake in 1931 at 10.47am (can't remember the date, but the time for some reason stuck in my mind). They had to rebuild a whole town at once. Think back to the 30's, what was big then? Yep thats right, its now a whole town made entirely of Art Deco buildings. Sunbursts, ziggarats, speed lines, chevrons, pastel colours the lot. It's like stepping into a giant museum, only with modern intrusions.



We took the guided walking tour, it was excellent and we got a cuppa tea at the end too, which is always nice.

Napier is in a region called Hawkes Bay which is known for its produce and wine. The weather was a touch rainy so we thought we'd skip the self cycle wine tour and do the Foodie tour instead. Following the leaflet we stopped at all the local producers and ate or drank our way round the region. YUM. And get this, there was a Mushroom Farm on the list! Oh my cup overflowed with joy, especially when the manager agreed to give us a tour behind scenes even though it wasn't really allowed. We even got a mushroom each to keep as a souvenir.



I was that excited I could have burst.I'm sure the manager thought I was off my trolley.



After that things got a little Crazy...





...Well it was Cols Birthday after all, I had to let him win...

Somewhere along the way we also fit in a trip to an aquarium, a glass floored tower (Dave and Claire - yes i did the usual show of being not very brave), plenty of walks through forests, waterfalls, a bit of twitching, a model Maori village where we saw traditional dancing and flax weaving and massive war canoes, and places with names we couldn't pronounce...



All in all, this traveling has made me a pretty mean map reader. Just think, a year ago I didn't even know places like Whatuwhiwhi and Fernie existed, let along be able to place them on a map. Erm, hold on a second...Who moved Fernie to America while I wasn't looking???

[map of the world found in a Holiday park kitchen, note the dashed line marking the border between Canada and the USA]

All in all the North Island proved to be a winner. So we left it and took a ferry to the South Island to see how that fared, but that's another blog. See you all in the South Island soon.