Auckland, Rotorua and Bay of Plenty

Love these trees - I call them the Dr. Seuss trees.
Not in a house, not with a mouse, not in a tree Sam, let me be!

Feb 16 - 20, 2014
We very reluctantly left the north of the north island to check out the rest of the country.  It was hard to leave as it’s an incredibly beautiful and relaxing place to be.  Our first stop was Auckland to spend the night and pick up my computer the next day.  We stayed with a lovely lady named Tracy who greeted us with a beer for Glen and a lemon fizzy drink for me. 

Our room with deck at Tracy's place.  Not bad!  
The most amazing and beautiful birdsong in the morning.
Loved it.

Upstairs at Tracy's.  Beautiful kitchen to work in.

We were going to have an early evening, but just as we arrived in Auckland, I received an e-mail from a lady named Sandy who is the sister-in-law of Glen’s cousin Mary (whom we met in England in the summer).  Sandy wanted to know if we’d be in Auckland at all, and if we could meet up.  Since we were only there for one night, I e-mailed her back thinking it wouldn’t work out . . . but it did!  And so we met her and her husband Sid in downtown Auckland  near the marina and had a couple of drinks and a few laughs.  It was a very spur of the moment thing to do, and fun to get to know some ‘almost relatives’.  Mary had mentioned to Sandy that we were in NZ, and so Sandy took it upon herself to contact us.  Such a sweet and friendly thing to do.

Meeting the 'really distant' relatives in Auckland.  

Glen checking out the yachts for sale in the downtown harbour

We left the next morning for the central area of the north island called the Rotorua and our next AirBnB which was on Lake Tarawera. Our first stop was at Karangahake for a hike through an old gold mining and railway area.  The hiking here is just beautiful - so many different trees and plants than we are used to seeing at home.

Pretty river location - could be anywhere in BC, except
for this tree!  And these little red flower 'weeds' are all over the place
in New Zealand.

Suspension bridge.  I don't like 'em, but it was necessary
to get to the hiking trails!

Old gold mine remnants

Maybe an old gold miner could tell me what this is.

Beautiful hiking and cycling trails here.  We could have stayed
a couple of days and not seen them all.  That's the highway
across the river.

This is for Ron Reid - old railway tunnel

Glen doesn't quite get the concept of these things.  Sigh.

Just because it was there.  And because it's a really big old wheel.

Rotorua area is essentially a bunch of old volcanos, a lot of lakes and hot springs and is extremely picturesque.  I guess I didn’t read the description of the AirBnB carefully enough  . . and in my defence, it was very obscure wording.  Essentially, we wound up in a place that was a ‘shared’ accommodation with other travellers - pretty much a hostel.  We thought about leaving but decided that it was only 3 nights and the area was pretty, so let’s see what happens.  The others who were sharing with us were all equally surprised by the situation, so it wasn’t just me.  The first night we shared with a teacher from Australia who was travelling alone, the second night we had the place to ourselves and the third night, a young German couple arrived.  We all had our own rooms, but shared the cooking, bath and living areas.  In the end, everyone got along fine. There was a lovely little outside patio with a very pretty table.  The lake was lovely and clean for swimming and we did some nice hikes in the area and had one day of just relaxing near home, reading and doing the quick 5 minute walk to the beach.

Loved this outdoor patio table and area

The common room.  There were three bedrooms opening
onto this room, and the kitchen and bath area in the back.

There was a lakefront walk that cut across all the
cottages on the lake.  It felt a bit like trespassing but it wasn't

Beautiful tree leaves.  No idea what it's called.  

Beautiful clear water, lots of docks, lots of boats.  

A Maori totem pole

The ridge that sits between The Green Lake on the left
and The Blue Lake on the right.  The Green Lake is Maori sacred
territory, so no-one is allowed on it.  Blue Lake:  open season!

There is a redwood forest not too far from Lake Tarawera, so we spent a few hours trekking through it.  One thing I’ve noticed about New Zealand is that they have public washrooms everywhere, and they are always spotless.  Also, they are free (not always the case in Europe!)  In the redwood forest, they actually created sculpture around the individual washrooms.  

Look up . . . waaaaaay up.  Giant Redwood.  I thought they were
only in California.

Beautiful forest trail - we hiked for about an hour in here.
Notice the giant fern trees.  Love those.

The weirdest little trees - they look like Charlie Brown Christmas trees

Design on a wall in the washrooms area

'shroud' around the outdoor toilets

I took pictures of the signs because they explain the
washrooms so much better than I could!

From Lake Tarawera, we headed to the east coast.  We thought about checking out the highly publicized Waiotapu Scenic reserve . . . but it was $32.50 to get in and was just a hike through some bubbling volcanic beds and we didn’t see the value.  

Outside Waiotapu Scenic Reserve.  Bubbling . . . well, mud.

So we headed back to the highway and saw a sign for Te Manaroa thermal pools and figured we’d go check those out.  It only cost $3 to wander through that area - a much better deal and we got a free steam bath into the deal!  Crazy and gorgeous!  The spring is said to have the largest discharge of boiling water in New Zealand from a single source at 98 degrees celsius!   The little town in Waikiti Valley has come together and built a community pool using water from the springs, as well as a hiking trail with info signs up the river.  The $3 for hiking covers their maintenance costs. You can pay a bit extra to use the pool or more to hire a private pool room, but we didn’t do that. 

Lots of volcanic cones to see in this part of the country

Crazy landscapes

Love the colours - this is what it's like all over the place here.
Greens, golds, browns, hills, more hills, volcanos . . .gorgeous!

We stood on this deck and had a steam bath

The pool and canteen area the locals built here.  There are two
or three public pools, and some little enclosed huts with private
pools.  The gold coloured stream in the foreground is the warm
water coming in - it has to go down a long pathway in order to cool off
enough for the pools.

The water coming from the hot springs down a series of
mini waterfalls to cool off

The lily pad-like formations seen in the boiling river are calcite and
silica.  They are formed due to the high mineral content in the water
particularly calcium and magnesium (I took that bit off the sign on
the trail!)  We were quite high up looking down on the river - see the
steam rising up through the trees.

To see the hot spring in action, click this link for a short video I made.  Bubbling Hot Spring

We then stopped off in an area called the Bay of Plenty and spent a couple of hours hiking out to a big rock promontory on Mount Maunganui beach.  Glen is always on the lookout for paua shells, and the spot looked promising . . . but no luck!  Just the regular types.  There was a big concert going on in the park across the road - they have built ‘bleachers’ into the hill by stepping it naturally and planting it with grass.  Quite clever, but probably difficult to keep it mowed!

Promontory at Mount Maunganui Beach.  Nice hike out to the end

Grass bleachers in town, across the street from the beach.
Nice views for a concert.

It goes quite far out

Crazy kids!  It was a loooooong way down.

Carrying on down the highway, we stopped for lunch at the Opepe Bush Historic Reserve.  We hiked along the trail for about 10 minutes and came across a little graveyard for some English soldiers who had died there in a clash with a local Maori group a hundred years ago or so.  I don't like eating in graveyards, so we went back to the carpark and ate there.

I liked this sign background

Pampas grass everywhere

Still in volcano country

Turned a corner and noticed a car pullout, so we turned in to see why.
This is what we saw - gorgeous!

As we exited the mountains, it was apparent that we were headed into wine country - miles and miles of vineyards.  Most of them have huge hedges growing around them - probably about 20’ high.  I can’t imagine what it takes to keep those trimmed!  I guess they keep the wind off the vines.  Next stop is Napier - the Art Deco town.

Not the best picture - I took it as we were driving and the windshield
was rather dirty.  These huge hedges are around all the
vineyards in the Napier area.