Tongariro Crossing!

New Year’s Day 2010 ~ the beginning of a new decade!!

We woke up to a perfectly blue sky with the sun shining in! Just beautiful outside and exactly the kind of weather we needed for our hike. It’s not too hot outside as there’s always a breeze blowing and just right for hiking and whitewater rafting. We shuttled the kids over to Turangi about a 40 minute drive and then drove ourselves back to the car park at Mangatepopo car park. We started our hike at 1:00pm and finished at 6:00pm. The first section up to Soda Springs is fairly flat and easy and then the climbing begins. 800m up a well marked trail that has a good path up through the volcanic rock. You reach South Crater where the trail flattens out to give you just enough of a rest before the last hump up to the Red Crater where you get to the high point and look over to Emerald Lake and Blue Lake, a small lake that has some steam coming out from the side of it. Emerald Lake is a perfectly round crater lake with turquoise water, very pristine looking amongst all the black rock. The wind was blowing quite strong up here, we heard later probably gusting around 60kmh so we didn’t hang around that long. We turned and retraced our steps back to the car. This section of the track is the more interesting of the crossing itself and since we didn’t want to do the shuttle ($30NZD) because we have a car we walked back. Still we covered the same distance as the total crossing, 18km. Never a cloud was found in the sky on this day which was not the case any other the other days we were there.

We went back to Turangi to meet the kids coming in from rafting and then headed back to our hostel. Dinner and bed was pretty much our evening and packing as we leave the following morning for Waihi Beach where the Doleman’s are enjoying some major beach time!

New Zealand Part 2
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January 2, 2010

Stopped in at the Station Café for our last latte and then headed out for a 4 hour drive to our friend’s, Steve and Christine Doleman. We drove through Taupo, a very popular sport destination area and then onto Rotorua, but we didn’t stop here. Got a quick whiff of the sulpher springs that grace the area and made our way onto Tauranga, the largest town before Waihi beach.

We pulled into Steve and Christine’s around 4pm with the sun blazing hot out and a completely different summer atmosphere compared with everywhere else we’ve been. We took a walk down to the beach and up and around a point over to another bay with a beautiful beach. The beach here is gorgeous! It goes for kms of white sand, not many people and nice water to swim in. I felt like we’d just hit summer paradise! We had a delicious dinner sitting out on their deck with champagne and of course Spaights brews. A great evening under the stars!

January 3, 2010
Our final full day in this amazing country. We decided to spend more time hanging out around this area rather than drive into Auckland and try to see a bit of the city. The morning was clear and warm out. I took an early morning walk down to the beachside café for a cappuccino and a walk on the beach. There was no one around except all the dog owners taking their dog for a run, walk, or stick fetching and swim. A perfect place for dogs!

Today was the Provincial 7’s Rugby Festival in nearby Mt. Maunganui. Tickets were 5 bucks each to get into the park and watch the best 7’s players from all over NZ play before heading to the Nationals. The day got hotter and hotter and it was impressive how many people were out sitting around the field watching the games. Lots of sunscreen and umbrellas today! After a few games Meg, Jess and I drove into town to do a little last minute shopping and then head back to Waihi Beach for a swim and drink on the deck before driving into our airport motel in Auckland. We reluctantly pulled out around 7pm and arrived two hours later at our motel just 5minutes from the airport. This was a good idea because the airport is well outside the hussle of the city so it was very quick access to get there.


January 4, 2010

Awoke to rain! This made it all the more easier to leave. We returned the van at the airport and flew off back to HK then Shanghai at 8am on Cathay Pacific. Our total trip car mileage was 3200kms in 12 days!!
Great flight with loads in movie entertainment, food, and leg room. All flights were smooth and landed in Shanghai the same day at 8:00pm!
A really wonderful time and a place we’d definitely go back too!!

By time we landed back in Shanghai, our friends Anna and Corran in Dunedin decided to take the plunge and come visit us and China! Now I’m helping plan their trip for this April/May!

New Zealand ~ North Island

Ferry Crossing from Picton to Wellington and on up to Tongariro National Park.

North Island~
Dec.30th 2009
After the 3 1/2hr. ferry ride we still had around a 4 hour drive up to Tongariro National Park heading up hwy1 North out of Wellington. We fueled up and replenished food stocks for the next 3 days as we knew we’d be out in the boonies again and not sure what would be available. It’s a long drive out of the busy streets of Wellington quite a bit different from where we’ve just been. We head up to Wanganui and then turn inland on hwy 4 towards the Park. You can stay on hwy 1, but we were staying at The Crossings backpacker hostel in Erua which is on the West side of the Park. We see a sign for Erua and then another sign for The Crossings and that’s it. Now 9:30pm, it’s quite dark out with a full cloud cover. We pull into what looks like a bunch of renovated ATCO trailers fixed up and no one at the front desk even though we called to say we’d be arriving later. A few people are there but no innkeeper. After about 10 minutes we see a truck drive up and it’s the owners. We get our rooms, very basic, but clean and crash for the night. Another long travel day of 12 hours. I would not recommend this hostel for families. Expensive, beds not great, and nothing immediate to do without a drive.

Megin, Geoff, and I take a tour of the area and Brendan stays behind to chill out. There are some horses in the yard that we later find out are the owners and just a lot of trees around. We drive up towards the ‘town’ of National Park and find a backpackers hostel and a café down by the train station called The Station Café. I am thrilled to find out they make a tasty Long Black (Americano) and a good latte for Geoff. We then head out towards our first stop, the local ski area called Whakapapa Village nestled up in a lot of the volcanic rock. A very unusual looking place for a ski village I think to myself, but we are on a volcano so the landscape fits. It’s all black and no trees. The sun is out and it’s windy up by the shop and where the chairlift begins. We take a small hike up to a nearby ridge to get a better view and take in Mt. Ngauruhoe 2291m and further beyond Mt. Tongariro 1867m. Mt. Ruapehu 2797m is the mountain that the skiing happens on. The Tongariro Chateau sits alone looking very established and well respected, like a Lake Louise or Banff Springs Hotel. We did not stay here, but it looked very inviting. I noticed there were other options for lodging up in the village that would be nice. Lots of ‘tramping’ trails from here into the Park.

We then took our exploring back to the road and followed hwy 47 around the Park towards Turangi, a small quaint town just at the bottom of Lake Taupo. When we found this town, we realized this would have been a better choice for lodging as there’s more to do and it’s still very close to everything you’d want in the Park. Turangi is one of the hot spots in NZ for outdoor excitement and we found Rafting New Zealand there offering a 4 hour whitewater trip that included jumping off the cliffs next to the Puketarata waterfall. The kids were up for this kind of adventure over hiking for 5 hours in Tongariro. We were lucky to get the last two spots for January 1st 2010 – another surcharge applied for the holiday – but for an adventure sport, whitewater rafting is great value. It seems to cost the least for the amount of time you get to be out. Bungy jumping is 30 seconds or less and costs the same or more, skydiving costs 3x the price and is a little bit longer than a bungy jump, maybe more thrill, but for our family budget, everyone was happy with the whitewater rafting option.

Driving back down the other side of the Park on hwy 1 provided completely different scenery. It wasn’t so volcanic as it was back to rolling hills and lots of greenery. We arrived back to our humble abode around 6:30pm, picked up Brendan and dashed off to the climbing wall at National Park. The kids went climbing for an hour and Geoff used the wireless connection. Then back to make dinner. The Crossings is slowly filling up with people which is nice because it doesn’t feel so much like a ghost hostel and there’s some interesting people to chat with. This was New Year’s Eve, a pretty mellow night overall. We had some yummy Mexican food and filled ourselves up then watched Invictus on Geoff’s laptop. Loved the movie and being in NZ, it was the perfect rugby movie to watch even though…well I won’t say who wins if you don’t already know. Watch the movie!

South Island Crossing S2N

Golden Bay here we come!

December 28.09
It’s a 14 hour journey from Dunedin to Takaka. Whichever way you slice it, the drive is long and beautiful. We left Anna and Corran’s in Dunedin at 10:00am and followed our route back up hwy 1 and turned off to go through Geraldine again and follow the scenic route which had less traffic and just as fast. Decided to head over Arthur’s Pass instead of Lewis Pass towards the West Coast. Going through the pass we were blessed with sunshine and big skies. A gorgeous area so we stopped at the pass and had lunch. Mountains, a large open river bed and lots of pasture to keep our eyes busy. We went down around Moana instead of going to Greymouth on the coast, but realized after turning onto hwy 7 heading inland towards Motueka that the towns were becoming smaller and smaller, with fewer people around and no gas stations. Every small town was guaranteed a pub/restaurant, but not a gas station, let alone one that would be open. It was 7:00pm and we were heading into a very rural area with only a ¼ tank of gas with still a ways to go until Motueka, the next largest town in Tasman Bay. We decided to turn back and go into Greymouth for gas. Lucky we did as there were no open gas stations until Motueka. Unless you’re in the busy city areas, there are not always a lot of gas stations around and they do not stay open late. They’ll be shut down by 6:00pm usually. Good to know if you’re doing a lot of driving. After this incident we always kept our tank full! Murchison was a god-send as we pulled in at 9:00pm for a break. There was actually a restaurant open! We grabbed an espresso and take away fish and chips. The best deal on chips we’d seen anywhere! Although the distance does not look far on the map to Takaka we still had a good 3 hours ahead of us. We pulled into Kathie’s at 12:30am.

This is a picture of New Zealand’s flower and what they name as their xmas tree/flower. It was gorgeous, but also gave me no end of hayfever grief!! Golden Bay is at the very NW tip of the South Island just a stone’s throw away from Abel Tasman National Park. We only had one full day in this area and clearly it was not enough time. Abel Tasman would be a stunning place to explore and camp at and hanging out in funky Takaka is fun. There are loads of beautiful white sandy beaches surrounding the area and lots of beachcombing to do. You have to drive up and over the mountain that separates Takaka from Motueka and it is one windy road so the going is slow, but the views are spectacular. We visited our friend Kathie and her little girl Bella there. Wished we could’ve stayed longer as it’s similar to our Nelson BC, but full of beaches. I felt like I was on Hornby Island at times there with the windswept trees and the house we stayed in was very zenlike and had a gulf island feel to it. Unfortunately, trying to see both islands in one trip meant we had to push on to catch the ferry from Picton to Wellington on the 30th. It’s a 4 hour drive to Picton from where we were so we were gone by 8:00am the next morning.

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