Hello.
So here we are on our last day in New Zealand. We're now in Auckland after travelling from Wellington at the bottom of the north island, to Cape Reinga at the very north.
As you may have guessed, we're not a big fan of cities so we decided to leave Wellington and head straight to a town near lake Taupo. There are three active volcanoes there in Tongariro national park. In the Lord of the Rings, this area was the background for Mordor: where the evil bad guy lives and where the downfall of mankind was plotted. However, when the lord of evil and death was up to his mischief, the weather was a bit better than we went there so you'll have to ask him if it's nice or not. We didn't see too much through the fog and rain.
From there we headed up to Taupo. Lake Taupo was apparently the mightiest volcano ever, but that was a while ago. Now, what's left behind is a massive area of geothermal activity that stretches all the way to the coast.
Before that we popped down to Huka Falls, a pretty impressive waterfall where a wide river is forced into a narrow gorge, creating a massive load of pressure which launches out of the other end as a waterfall.
Our first encounter with the volcanic stuff was the Craters of the Moon, a walk through a few acres of land which happens to be full of smoking craters. Basically, it looks like a battlefield from a war film, with steam coming out of the ground and big craters where the earth's been boiled away from below.
Then it was off to Orakei Korako. We jumped on a ferry across a river to a huge silica terrace, which looks like where lava has poured down a hill, carving through a forest. That's not what it is, but that's what it looks like.
It had gushing geysers, hot springs, bubbling mud pools etc., and was just a bizarre place to see.
From there it was to Rotorua which is basically the heart of the geothermal part of New Zealand, since it's the biggest town in the area. Despite being completely built up, right next to the city is a park which has more bubbling mud pools and steaming craters. The highlight was a lake which was about 50 metres squared and obviously bloody hot, because there was steam pouring off it. It was amazing, especially since there's a walkway through the middle of it.
While in Rotorua we also fancied seeing a bit of Maori culture so signed up for an evening of traditional Maori food called Hangi, which involves putting meat into a makeshift hole in the ground, filled with hot coals and then left for several hours. It was bloody tasty.
To get our appetites up, we were treated to a performance of dancing and a bit of the history of the Maori race. This included the Haka of course. Scary faces all round and a great evening out.
Our next stop was Matamata or as it's not really known, 'another place where they filmed the Lord of the Rings', aka Hobbiton. This time it was the hobbits little village which is still wedged in the hillside of a sheep farm. We did a tour and it was nerdtastic!
This is the only set that still remains because usually film companies have to return any location to it's original state. The weather stopped them doing this here at the time and the owners of the farm managed to negotiate with the film company to hang on to it and do tours.
If you haven't seen the Lord of the Rings, just imagine Tellytubbyland, inhabited by little people with big feet.
Our travels continued north and east to the Coromandel peninsula, to a small town called Hahei. The main attraction of this area was the Hot Beach, where you simply dig a hole in the sand, and it fills with water from underground springs that is sometimes too hot even to touch. One of the weirdest places we've been too but extremely neat.
For the last few days in New Zealand we explored the north of the island. We drove up to the Bay of Islands on the east coast, which is very pretty, and then onward to Cape Reinga at the very northern tip, where the Pacific and Tasman seas meet.
Cape Reinga itself was a bit of a disappointment. The place was beautiful - some of the nicest scenery of the north island is up there - but they're digging it all up to put in better facilities at the moment. It'll be great in a couple of years.
We parked up next to the beach nearby and had a nice sleep with the sound of the ocean in our ears. Then the next morning we popped over to the Te Paki sand dunes, huge dunes on the west coast of the northern tip. We had a lot of silly fun climbing up and sliding down them, even though we failed to find the sandboard hire shop.
And then it was basically heading back south towards Auckland, where we are right now. We have just met up with Adam who we met on the orange farm in Queensland, and this afternoon we'll just be wandering round looking at what this city has to offer.
The north island can't compete with the south in terms of the sheer world class scenery and features but it's got it's fair share, and we've had a cracking time in New Zealand. It's been nice to treat this part of the trip as a holiday (man, we've spent a lot of money!) too, instead of watching the pennies all the time.
We've covered 3,000 miles in the last three weeks and enjoyed every minute. Off to Thailand tomorrow for the final chapter.
Charlotte forgot the camera so we can't put any pics on yet. Charlotte's denying this was her fault and is blaming me but since I'm typing the blog, I can put what I like.
