![]() |
Sept
10-14 Sept
15-17 Sept
24 - Oct 2 Oct
4-11 Oct
16-20 Oct
24-28 Nov
27 - Dec 5 NEW ZEALAND Jan
2-7 Jan
8-12 Jan
13-19 Jan
30-Feb 4 Feb
4-11 Feb
12-19 Feb
20-27
|
February
4-11, North
Island The ferry ride was a real pleasure today – a blue sky afternoon as we cruise smoothly through Queen Charlotte Sound. The school holidays are long gone, so the ship is quiet and we score a window-side table to sip cappuccinos while we watch the lovely South Island slip away behind us. The port city of Wellington is another matter. Revellers swell the sidewalks, drinking to the wins and losses of the Wellington Sevens, a rugby tournament of seven teams. It is a big deal here – the reason we had so much trouble finding a place, any place, to stay. The Murton Motor Camp is a what tour books would call “basic.” As in “the fellow is still building it.” And he seems to have a hard time focussing. Everything is very clean and for $50 it’s adequate. But every single structure is in a state of “not quite finished.” Everything. There are piles of lumber about ...neat piles, but piles of lumber just the same. There are cement walkways ...but they end halfway to nowhere. The kitchen has an opening to a dining room where the drywall is up but not mudded. Our cabin is finished, but not painted. And on and on. But we do have a television and discover that the Wellington Sevens is on TV. Canada playing Scotland. We lose 10 to 5. But these tournament-style games are very short so I’m sure if it had been a full game we’d have found our footing and won. Sure of it.
We were there all day and still didn’t see it all. It was total information overload. We never even got to the “rides” on Level Two which do things like jolt you forward to Wellington 2055 or backwards to prehistoric times. My favourite exhibition was the “junk store.” This is a shop, not dissimilar to many we mooched through in small town New Zealand. Nothing is ever thrown out ...there is always hope someone will buy a “Boys Guide to Responsible Manhood” or a formica step table or Patsy Cline warbling on vinyl. In the Te Papa junk store the seats are a collection of oddsods. I made a beeline for an overstuffed plush lounger, while Steve got stuck with a straight-backed chrome kitchen chair. The lights dim and as they do, you realize that the wall-sized window in front of you is actually a screen, and the cars passing the window are all circ 1950s. As night falls, the grumpy old proprietor lowers the security gate and locks the door. The movie that comes on is as much an oddsod collection as the gear in the shop. It’s brilliant really. A collage of video clips that cover everything and anything kiwi. Men march to war, earthquakes shake apart buildings, royals wave from trains and sheep are sheared in seconds. Just brilliant. Loved every minute of it. Te Papa also
has an excellent
Maori gallery
that includes
a full-sized
marae – or
meeting house
Finally, there
is a ground floor
native garden
with its own
suspension bridge,
as well as performance
spaces.
If I have a criticism of this museum it is that there was far too much “don’t touch” and not enough, “please touch”. Good museum though, overall. The main core of Wellington’s downtown area is small, only about 2 km wide. This is because the city is perched on the edge of a harbour, with mountains looming up directly behind and around. There is not much room to spread out, so the main centre has condensed itself into a very walkable core that encompasses all the main sites – museums, galleries, shops, bar and restaurant scene. The architecture is an exciting mix of the historic and the contemporary, with whole streets, like Cuba Street, prancing out in decoratively carved limestone and wrought iron facades, while others are given over to contemporary steel and smoked glass. We strolled
down the streets,
absorbing the
energy still
sparking from
a weekend of
rugby mayhem.
A Chinese food
cafe spilled
out onto the
street, offering
all-you-can-eat
buffet for $ We carried on up the hill to where the cable car terminates in the Botanical Gardens. These gardens are famous for their 300 different species of roses and for the observatory. There were very few people about ...which seemed strange considering it was the Sunday afternoon of a long weekend. We took in the view and moved on. Eastern Cape The plan for the next week is to head north, up and around the eastern cape to Rotorua. It is a cold and blustery morning as we head north up Hwy 2 to Masterton. But we are reminded that this is a narrow island and the weather passes over quickly. By noon it is warm and sunny enough for a picnic. Masterton is
where they hold
the Golden Shears
Competition each
year, first week
of March. This
is the Olympics
of Shearing and
we are sorry
to miss it. There
is a Sheep Shearing
Museum, but admission
is $5 to see
a lot of t We discovered the town’s art gallery, Aratoi, next door. It was exhibiting an eclectic mix of local artists and something called the “collected work”. Can’t say that I saw all that much that I liked. The “collected work” looked as if someone had died and their executor had gathered up and donated every piece of “art” in the house, including the children’s primary school crayonings. There were polished professional pieces and there were extremely amateurish and unfinished scribblings. And don’t tell me it was folk art. It wasn’t. From there we carried on over 200 km up the back road to Waipukurau. This is one very long and winding road, undulating through the rolling, folding hills of sheep country. The reason we took this specific road is because the longest place name in the world is on it. Taumatawhakatangihangakoauauotamateaturipukakapikimaungahoronukapokaiwhenuakitanatahu
is the place
where a Maori
chief grieved
the death of
his brother.
The name actually
means “The
hilltop where
Tamatea, with
big knees, conqueror
of mountains,
eater of land,
traveller over
land The place he played his flute is a prominent hill you can walk to – it takes about 4 hours. We took their word for it. There is no actual town. I think that was a disappointment to Steve. In Waipukurau we found a nice cabin for the night. For $54 we got a bedroom with double bed, ensuite bathroom, kitchen/dining/living room. There was a fridge, full kitchen equipment and television. Steve spent the evening watching X2, a science fiction movie about mutants. I think he was still sulking about the longest place name being nothing more than a sign. It is a peaceful place. The manager told us to help ourselves to plums from the overloaded orchard. Tree-ripened, they are so juicy and sweet. We took a big bagful for the road. Carried on to Hastings the next morning, just 50 km or so down the road. The shop fronts in this town are all very art deco with hanging baskets every three feet and window boxes perched on top of overhangs, all bursting with colourful trailing petunias. It’s a really pretty town. From there we carried on to Napier where we have a large standard cabin for the next two nights. There are big windows looking out on the park with a lovely breeze blowing in. Steve is not 100% thrilled about staying put for two nights. He prefers to be on the move but I’m tired of travelling to a new place every night. I need to nest and two nights in the same bed is not too much to ask. In Napier we head for the National Aquarium of New Zealand. Being the “national” aquarium I was expecting quite a bit. It is actually quite small and they give over a lot of the space they do have to fish and critters from places like Africa, South America, and Asia.
We followed up on the shark feeding by heading off to the possum museum. This was advertised as offering everything you ever wanted to know about possums. These rodents are considered a national disaster here – an introduced species that eat up tons of foliage and spreads TB. Otherwise mild-mannered old ladies told me they’d shoot them on sight. Which doesn’t surprise me. In Australia I met a lovely old lady in her 90s who keeps a custom-built, spiked hoe at her back door for disemboweling cane toads. She swears she uses it a couple times a week. After seeing the aggressiveness of road-enraged Kiwi drivers, I’ve no doubt that little old ladies are capable of taking it out on possums. The museum offered
a possum-shooting
opportunity.
Just targets
I presume, but
who knows, these
people are crazy
on this subject. Our second night in that cabin, Steve attempts to improve our bed. It has a very thin mattress over rigid wooden slats. We felt them all night. There is also a set of bunk beds in the cabin so he figures that if he takes the mattresses off the bunk beds and slides them under our double mattress, we’ll have a softer sleep. This was true, but then we spent all night sliding into the middle and clawing our way back out to the edges. It wasn’t good. Staying in cabins
has its advantages
over a campervan,
but it has the
disadvantage
of putting you
into a different
bed virtually
every night.
What I have learned
from this is
that there are
good nights when
you sleep well
and there are
bad nights when
you are awake
all night. Yes,
there are truly
awful beds that
keep you awake,
but most beds
are ok Crawled out this morning and headed up the east coast for Gisborne. This is a 200 km day. That may not sound like much but it will take all day because the road twists and turns, goes up and down. There are numerous stops for roadwork or because we are down to one lane where a landslide has occurred or the road has given away. The road is an especially pretty one, with deep indentations in the earth which folds upon itself, over and over again. Deep crevasses have been cut by creeks, some still flowing, some indicated only by the luxuriousness of the vegetation growing within the deep valley they’ve cut through the earth. It does seem
that Maori culture
is more visible
on the North
Island.
Our waitress
at lunch, a young
woman, has the
traditional facial
tattoos and many
of the schools
we pass feature
beautiful It’s a cold, wet, and dreary day ...no photos today. At times the fog completely envelopes us. We stop in Wairoa for a coffee and mooch around through the local museum and art gallery. It’s interesting that people care so much about their small town galleries. We almost always visit them and they are always staffed by what I assume are volunteers – people committed to keeping the town’s history and/or the art scene alive. The proprietress
at the art shop
next door proved
to be an overflowing
fount of trivia
with a booming
business selling
her photos of
the area. She
was actually
selling these
to locals who
were sending
them off to relatives
elsewhere. Kind
of like home
grown post cards. Carried on down the road to Gisborne, which sits on a nice stretch of ocean frontage. Our holiday park is right on the water. If it would quit raining it would be a nice place to hang out. Instead we head off to the local indoor pool for some exercise. We both feel oceans better for the exercise. Driving through town, it’s obvious the art deco theme has continued up the coast from Napier. Interesting looking buildings and a bustling downtown core. They’ve planted palm trees every few feet up and down the main drag and it looks really nice. We are seeing a lot of palms on the roads and in the towns now. We are heading up into the more tropical areas of New Zealand ...so where is the sun?
The weather
is still drizzly
but there three
ladies out on
the porch with
their accordions,
playing up their
own storm of
toe-tappin'
good cheer. It's
infectious. The next morning we travel around the Eastern Cape from Gisborne to Tolaga Bay to Tokomaru Bay to Te Araroa to Te Kaha and finally, to Opotiki where we’ve settled for the night. Our intention had been to make our home for the night at one of the above mentioned beaches. Alas, the weather was so nasty we just kept going. At Te Araroa we stopped for gas and paid a whopping $1.62 per litre and glad to get it. We were running perilously low and at first glance this run down little town didn’t appear to have a service station. It didn’t, but I did notice a pump behind the dairy and it looked like it might be in service. So Steve walked around asking until he found the cheerful chap who could unlock the pump and take our money. The terrain
over the first
half of the day
was inland, with
the lush green
hills that fold
in upon themselves,
deeply crevassed
where streams
flow down their
flanks. The sheep
terrace the hills
with their footpaths
and we certainly
saw a lot of
them today. In
fact, the highlight
of the day was
coming on a fellow
and his dogs
moving The dogs were impressive, responding to commands from a little whistle held in the farmer’s teeth. When we came up on the back side of the mob, the farmer spit a pattern of sharp whistles and the dogs pushed the sheep off the left side of the road so we could ease on by. As I said, impressive. Tomorrow we are off to Rotorua, home of the smelly thermal mudpits. Only human beings would actually pay $23 for the privilege of trudging around these skanky, oozing, open sores ...but they do, and we did, because if we didn’t, how could I tell you about it? NEXT: Rotorua
and Coromandel
Peninsula
|
|
![]() |