Category: New Zealand

Our final week of this holiday has been spent on the South Island of NZ. Queenstown has a Whistler/Banff resort-town kind of feel, with lots of adventure activities, jaw dropping scenery, and elevated prices! One day we got creative and compromised on our activity for the day: I got up early and hiked up to the Ben Lomond peak and while I was hiking down Rob took the gondola part way up the mountain to meet me for lunch.

The hike was difficult, mostly because of the huge elevation gain over a short time. The summit was totally worth the grind. I had clear views, not a breath of wind, and time to sit and enjoy the view.

Meanwhile Rob was having an adventure of his own on the gondola, including an epic green screen photoshoot. I don’t know what the white one is all about but I think there’s been a glitch.

We found a sports bar that was showing the 4 Nations Cup final. Even across the world the emotion of the game was palpable. The pub was filled to the brim with tense North Americans and we were happy to share celebratory high-fives with many Canadians. It felt very patriotic to read about friends in many other parts of the world who were also watching the big game. Unfortunately we had to leave after the 2nd period to catch a bus, so we were glued to the play-by-play as we rode through the postcard worthy scenery to Te Anau.

Te Anau is a village set in Fjordland National Park and is the start of 3 of New Zealand’s ‘Great Walks’. One day I’d love to return and do one or more of these hut-to-hut hikes. We had booked a day trip to the famous Milford Sound where we saw more waterfalls than we could count. Unfortunately the weather was quite misty which wasn’t great for photos, so you’ll just have to believe when we say how beautiful it was.

Lake Te Anau was a perfect setting to rent bikes and ride the lake loop.

We have one day left to relax before we start our long journey to Vancouver for a family visit. We have been reflecting on how lucky we have been to have such a fun adventure and miss this brutal Canadian winter. We can definitely see another visit to NZ in our future.

Our last few remaining days on the Northern Island of New Zealand were spent in Hamilton, which has a few nearby attractions that are definite must sees. The first is the Waitomo Glowworm Caves which we made sure to visit on our drive up from Taupō. We had booked a tour as it was the only way to get to see the bioluminescent cave dwellers. We lucked out a bit because a big chunk of our tour group was delayed and had to reschedule which meant we had a much smaller group!

When we got near to the cave’s entrance, our guide knelt down by the creek and asked if we wanted to see the eels. As he did, a few eels started swimming right to him and he was handling them like they were domesticated. It was fascinating and creepy all at once. He then gave us the opportunity to feed them some Spam off of a popsicle stick. DawnO felt like she needed to give it a go and I was more than happy to take the pictures from a distance. She got to touch one and said it was slimier than she expected. That validated my decision to hang back.

Next up was the main event! We walked into the cave and once our eyes adjusted to the darkness we could see thousands of glow worms on the ceiling of the cave. Apparently they aren’t worms at all, but maggots. Our guide said that fact doesn’t help sell a lot of tickets so they stick to calling them glowworms instead. They are quite a long creature and just the tip of their tails glow. This light lures their prey into sticky threads that hang down from the cave. Once a bug flies into one of these threads, it’s dinner time!

We eventually made our way to a waterway where we took a raft deeper into the cave with the ceiling lit up with thousands of glowworms. Unfortunately we weren’t able to capture very good images as we would have required a tripod so I have found one from the web that shows what we experienced.

After our tour we continued to Hamilton and got settled in to our new accommodations. The next day we decided to tour Hamilton Gardens, another popular attraction. This was a large park and featured different gardens from around the world. We were both quite impressed with the accuracy of a lot of the countries. We actually felt like we were walking through India, Italy, and Japan. Most plants were authentic, but they did have a few fake ones so they could make it through the New Zealand winters. One of the more fun gardens was the ‘surreal garden’ which drew its inspiration from Alice in Wonderland.

Last on our attractions checklist was a big one for me. We booked ourselves a tour of Hobbiton from the Lord of the Rings and Hobbit movies.

You’ll have to excuse DawnO’s lack of enthusiasm in the above picture. You see we have a bit of history with the Lord of the Rings films. She has trauma from when I force fed her the Extended editions of these movies in the early days of our relationship. She has actually said the following words when asked if she wants to watch a LOTR film, “I would rather jump into Mt Doom and end myself.” So now, if ever I plan a date night that I’m afraid might be a bit lame I’ll give her a choice between that or a movie night featuring Lord of the Rings. It always makes the lame option look a bit more appealing. Anyway, back to Middle Earth…

Hobbiton was originally build in 1999 out of cheap movie set materials and was never meant to be a permanent fixture in the NZ countryside. Once the filming of the first trilogy was completed, the land was returned to its natural hobbitless state. When they rebuilt Hobbiton for the Hobbit trilogy, they realized that they had an opportunity to make some serious tourist dollars so they made the town exactly as before, but with quality materials. They have a full time staff gardening and manicuring the set which pumps hundreds of tourists through a day. Walking through it was really quite cool. I estimate we saw around 30-40 hobbit holes which were just exteriors. The hobbit holes were built to different scales to achieve the forced perspective trickery in the films. (For more information I suggest you watch the 300 million hours of behind the scenes docs that come with the extended editions of the original trilogy. Your significant other will love it).

Next we got to go into a hobbit hole which was a relatively new attraction. The interior shots in the movies were not done on this set but they built movie realistic interiors to 2 of their holes. It really added to the tour to get to see the interior.

Lastly we all headed over the bridge past the mill to the Green Dragon Inn for an ale, which was very tasty!

All-in-all, DawnO was happy with the tour. She was even happier we didn’t pay for the extended edition.

We left Cook’s Beach on a perfect weather day so took advantage by making some stops along our road trip. First one was at a macadamia orchard with great views of the bay.

At our lunch stop we had a little debate. Rob thought that the table beside the car would be adequate:

I was stating the case for lunch with a view, which also included a 6 minute hike straight up a series of staircases. I’m taking a poll: which spot would you pick?

Once we had gone up it seemed crazy not to hike up another 7 minutes for the best views! This is what poor RobO has to deal with.

Our stay for the next few nights was on a horse farm just outside of Te Aroha. We really enjoyed getting to know our new horsey friends.

NZ has a series of Great Rides, which are multi-day cycling journeys. We rented bikes and did 1 day of the Hauraki trail which took us through farmland, a 1.1km tunnel, bridges, and rainforest.

We locked the bikes and explored the Karangahake Gorge which included the Windows Hike, a freaky hike through old, dark gold mining tunnels where the only light was from ‘windows’ to the gorge.

We loved our lunch stop at a waterfall.

The next day RobO did some work on his upcoming musical (shameless plug for 9 to 5, showing in Medicine Hat late April), while I decided to hike up the Te Aroha mountain. The trail map listed it as ‘difficult’ but I was quite cavalier about how hard it could be. I had some quivering legs by the time I met Rob at a coffee shop!

Te Aroha has horse races 7 times per year and one happened to be during our stay. Our hosts told us that the races started at noon so we were there at quarter to, only to realize that the first one was at 2:01. No biggie – we watched the set up of all of the components and settled into our front row seats.

We watched a couple of races and we didn’t officially bet, but I won a 12 minute massage from RobO – 4 minutes per race that my chosen horse edged out his. But then we saw a horse get injured and have to be hauled into a horse ambulance, which put a damper on our excitement. So that was enough time at the races for us.

We drove further south to a pretty lakeside town called Taupo. One of the things that has been on the bucket list for a long time is to hike the Tongariro Alpine Crossing, which is a world heritage site and is heralded as New Zealand’s best day hike. It is a point to point hike so we were up early to drive to the end, park our car, and ride the shuttle to the start. I loved that the hike goes through 4 different types of landscape over it’s 20km route.

The first section felt like we were walking on another planet and included great views of Mount Tongariro, which any Lord of the Rings geeks out there would recognize as Mordor’s Mt. Doom.

As we hiked up and over the red crater we had our first glimpses of the jewel coloured alpine lakes.

On the way to our lunch spot at the blue lake the views looking back took our breath away.

The next section showed classic views over expansive fields and lakes with the odd steaming hot spring.

Finally we reached the only shaded area, the final 4km descent through the rainforest. By that point it was a bit of a slog, so there’s only 1 picture to prove how pretty it actually was. This hike definitely exceeded my expectations and Rob rated it as one of his top 3 favourite hikes!

After long showers, we refueled at BurgerFuel, an NZ gourmet burger chain. They give out a ‘doofer’ which is a little cardboard burger holder that contains all of your fixings while you chow down. We were skeptical at the start but RobO fully endorses it’s usefulness. I was too tired to notice that it was upside down!

We have a few more days of adventure on the north island. Can’t wait!

On my 47th birthday we left Australia and touched down in Auckland, New Zealand. This happens to be the 47th country I have visited! New Zealand is one of the few countries I have had on my bucket list since the beginning of our travels. I have heard it said that it is like a miniature version of Canada with its vast array of picturesque landscapes. If you have seen any of the Lord of the Rings movies you’ve seen what NZ has to offer.

Auckland didn’t disappoint. We were both quite taken with this laidback city. With most large international cities it’s usually a guarantee that at least one if not all five of your senses will be violated. I think this is one of the few cities to not do that. In fact, DawnO commented right away how lovely the air smelled. Happy birthday to me.

One of the things I like to do on my big day is get myself my free Starbucks drink (last talked about in our Seattle blog). I figured it wouldn’t work over here but DawnO convinced me to at least ask the question. As I feared, the answer was “No,” but was then followed up with “but I can just make you a free drink anyway. What would you like?” Points to Auckland.

We stayed at a lovely AirBnB that was in a kitschy neighbourhood and we were a block from a metro station so we explored near and far. Highlights include hiking up to one of the 53 dormant volcanoes in and around the city, walking around the main harbour, and dining at the Indian/Mexican fusion restaurant in our area for dinner.

Our last full day in Auckland was Waitangi Day, which is New Zealand’s annual national celebration. We made sure to attend one of the many festivals taking place in parks across the city. Though it wasn’t as flashy as the Australia Day celebration we attended in Sydney, it was still great to enjoy some live music outdoors.

We have rented a car and started our journey across the northern island of NZ, first stopping in Cooks Beach on the Coromandel Peninsula. This small village is close to some must-visit destinations including Cathedral Cove. This morning we got up early to view the sunrise and beat the crowds to the beach. It was definitely worth the 5:50am wake-up call.

After the throngs of people started showing up we headed to the next must-see destination ready to dig a hole in the beach! Hot Water Beach is the spot to go if you’re looking to soak in a natural hot tub. All you need to do is start digging in the sand where natural hot springs will seep their way through the sand to fill it. Be careful though, if you pick the wrong spot, you could burn yourself in the 64C water. We spent a lot of time walking through the maze of holes and people digging until we finally found the “Goldilocks” spot that we could lay in.

Tomorrow we pack up our rental car and continue exploring the north island. I can’t wait to see what else NZ has in store.