jeremy.id.au

On Thursday I arrived home in Melbourne from New Zealand, an unplanned trip that I took. Well I was planning to go see my friend Richard at some stage though I suddenly took the plunge and actually went. Considering I was spending the money to get there, I thought I’d take a look at Wellington. That soon became Auckland and Rotorua as well, then before long I was off to see half the country.

I arrived in Auckland on the 1st of September, where I spent two nights. Having first arrived I walked to the city, I did feel pretty uncomfortable at first being in an unfamiliar city, not knowing where I could sit down to do a few things like set up my pre-paid mobile account (without going back to the hotel). Finding somewhere to eat seemed like another big feat, but eventually I found a food court filled with asian food stalls. After dinner, I went up to Sky Tower to ’see the lights’, before eventually settling down to the hotel room for the night.

Day two, first thing I did was to catch a bus out to Kelly Tarlton’s. The harbour coast line kind of reminded me of some of the cliffs along the Yarra River here in Melbourne, perhaps it was the way it was vegetated. Kelly Tarlton’s was reasonably good though I was mildly disappointed about not having such a good look at the penguins as I would have liked. The reason being is that they rush you through on this moving car thing. After that I took some photos across the harbour, before heading out to Mt. Eden, where I was surprised to encounter cows in what might as well have been an inner city park. Views from Mt. Eden were great as well.

Day three was were the real travelling began. I was commencing my train journey down to Wellington and so had to be at the railway station by 8:55am. Once out of Auckland, I was surprised at how green the country side was. Though it wasn’t all that long before I arrived at Hamilton where I had to transfer to a bus bound for Rotorua. Once in Rotorua, the first thing I did was to travel to the maori arts and crafts institute ‘Whakarewarewa’. There was a lot in the way of maori culture, from the traditional buildings that they carved, to the tools and clothing that they wore. As well as that, there was also a kiwi enclosure though they weren’t too active. Though perhaps the most exciting thing was the geothermal area containing boiling mud, a lot of steam and even a small geyser that was active.

Since taking my time with looking at the geothermal acitivity, I missed the bus back into town and it would have been an hour before it returned so I walked back instead. That ended up taking probably just as long. I got back just in time to arrange a hangi meal. The concert before hand was very interesting, though it did seem to go on for a bit (though still worth seeing). The food was great, I enjoyed talking to a few people including the maori guy who was running the hangi thing with his family, as well as some locals. To complete the night they took us out for a walk through the bush to see glow worms and some eels swimming around at a spring.

The next day I had to be up even earlier to be on a bus by 8:20am. I enjoyed the last of the country side of the region surrounding Rotorua, before I arrived back in Hamilton. I had about about an hour to spare, so where I walked along the Waikato River and had a look around this very pretty town. Not before long, I was off again and the train trip resumed. I was continually surprised by the picturesque country side. Some of it would appear to have been out of a fairy tale, in other places there was mile apon mile of hedges that bordered the paddocks. Unfortunately it was not easy to get photos as the double glazed windows on the train didn’t fair too well with reflection. I did manage to get outside on the viewing platform for some pictures. However, it wasn’t until we arrived at the Raurimu Spiral that I was really impressed. The spiral consisted of three horseshoe bends and one complete 360 degree circle. As the train slowly made it way around the spiral, it climbed a total of 210 metres over 11 kilometres. Here we reached a total altitude of 835 metres. The next town from the spiral, National Park had a quite an alpine look and before long we were greeted with awesome views of Mt Ruapehu. Finally that day I was impressed by the Rangitikei River gorge which the train crosses five times in only half an hour. I arrived in Auckland 30 minuets late at 9pm, having been on the train since 12pm (though the train had left Auckland at 8:15am). It was a long trip but well worth it.

On the first day in Wellington (5th of September), I took a quick look at Te Papa,, the natural disasters exhibit was really great. After which, I took the cable tram to the top of the hill where the botanical gardens are. I had lunch at the top while enjoying the harbour views before walking down the side of the hill through the gardens and back into the city. I pretty much stumbled across the ‘beehive’ and Parliament House, though before long I realised I was at the back of these buildings and not the front! Across the road was also the world’s largest wooden office block.

Day two in Wellington wasn’t so exciting. I caught up with a friend at Victoria University (which is of no association to a certain western suburban university/former TAFE, back home in Melbourne) who I’d been speaking to on the net for some time. Someone else who happened to be hanging around this same part of Vic Uni was nice enough to offer me a lift up to Mount Victoria. The views up here were great, extending across Cook Strait and all around Wellington. By the time I got down to the bottom again at Oriental Bay, I decided it was a nice day for an ice cream. There wasn’t much left to do in Wellington so I took a ride on a trolley bus for the sake of it. Nothing exciting but something that just had to be done.

The 7th of Sept, couldn’t have been a more perfect day for making the voyage across Cook Strait. There was not a cloud in sight, nor ripple in the water. If the Wellington harbour wasn’t nice enough, Marlborough Sound was even better. Having spent an hour in Picton, I was once again on another spectacular train ride, this time along the Pacific Coast. There were views of the ocean with sandy grey/black beaches on one side of the train and at times you could see the alps on the other.

More to come…