Part 2 Of My Trip

I am finished with my travels on the North Island.  Tomorrow morning I take the ferry from the North to the South Island.  Everyone tells me that South Island is even more beautiful than the North Island.  I will be joining a new Straybus and group and we'll be traveling south along the west coast of South Island.  First, we'll drive through the Marlborough vineyard and the town of Nelson, then stopping for the night at the town of Marahau.  This is at the edge of the Abel Tasman National Park where we'll spend 2 nights.  Activities here include skydiving, microlighting (don't know what it is), wine tasting (sign me up!), kayaking, etc.
Our next stop is Punakaiki, an old mining town.  After Punakaiki, our next stop is the Franz Josef National Park, where we'll spend 2 nights at a lodge in the middle of the rainforest.  Franz Josef is famous for its glacier.  From Franz Josef we go to a town called Wanaka, where we see lakes carved out by glaciers.  Picturesque Queenstown is my next stop after Wanaka.  This is usually where visitors go to Milford Sound and other southern tourist sites start their trip.  It has a population of about 11,000 but is considered one of the big cities in New Zealand, especially on South Island.  Milford Sound is probably the most famous tourist attraction in New Zealand.  I can't wait to see it.
I will spend 3 nights at Queenstown before starting the 3rd leg of my trip and joining a different Straybus and group.

So who are the travelers on my first Straybus?  Almost all of them are in their 20s', except one lady I know is in her mid-30s'.  There is no age limit for the bus but most of the activities are quite physically strenuous.  If you are not in good physical condition, you will not enjoy the trip although participation is voluntary.
The majority of the travelers are from Europe:  Dutch, lots of Germans, Swedish, Norwegian, British (Irish and English), Swiss, Canadians, and very few Americans.  There is only 1 other American on the first bus.  A lot of the Europeans are combining work and travel.  They usually have a 1-year work visa, which allows them to work up to a year.  They may work in restaurants, hostels, hotel, etc, for a few months, then travel again.  Some have worked in Australia before coming to New Zealand.  A couple of German girls have been working in Australia picking tomatoes.  They told me that they get paid more than in Germany.  They are on a tight budget so they tend to stay in the cheapest hostels, which are usually the dirties and noisiest.
Like I mention before, our driver's name is Seagull.  He is about 35 years old and born in NZ, near Wellington,  He has been driving for Stray Travel for about 4 years.  He looks remarkably like Lance Armstrong.  Below is his picture and picture of others in the group.

Seagull, our driver

3 German Girls

German, Dutch, Norwegian, English travelers

Group Picture at the Maori Center

Wellington

Wellington is almost at the southern tip of the North Island.  It's the capital city of New Zealand, with a population of about 400,000 in the metropolitan area.  Because of its location, it is subjected to some unpredictable weather.  It also sits on a fault line so its citizens are always conscious of the possibility of earth quakes.   Its most well-known current resident is probably Peter Jackson, the director of the Lord of the Rings trilogy.  He is ready to premier his latest movie, "The Hobbit" at the end of this month.  I went on a 1-day tour of the Lord of the Rings movie locations.  We went to various sites where they filmed different parts of the movies.  I thought part of it is visiting Peter Jackson's studio.  We were able to see only the outside of the studio.  It was a disappointing tour.  Not only that, it was a cold and windy day.

Wellington's most famous landmark is probably the Te Papa Museum, aka the Museum of New Zealand.  Not only it's a beautiful building, the museum inside has some great contents on the history of the Maoris and the early European settlers.  I spent about 6 hours over 2 days there and still did not finish seeing the whole museum.  Best of all, it's admission is free.

The museum is located along a beautiful waterfront.  Walking north, you go towards the city center, then through Lambton Quay, the main retail street in Wellington.  Although it's the capital, there are no big shopping centers or malls here.  They also do not have a big departmental store like Walmart or Target in Wellington.  I did not bring enough warm clothing so I was looking for a store to buy some cheap warm clothing, something that I can get at Target for around US$10.  I asked around and had a hard time finding one.  Finally, I went to a kind of department store called appropriately, "The Warehouse."  They have already stopped selling their winter clothes even though the temperature was still in the 50s'.  Luckily, I was able to find a couple of long-sleeve cotton shirts on the clearance rack.

I joined a Walking City Tour on my last day here.  It was supposed to be an hour and a half tour but our long-winded retired guide dragged it on to almost 3 hours!  However, he provided some good historical information and facts about some of the buildings and history of Wellington.  This was on the day after the US Election and when they asked me whether I was happy with the outcome, I told them yes.  Everyone in the group cheered and said they were all relieved that Obama won.

On the night of the election, while I was doing my laundry, a British lady told me that on Courtenay Place, where the bars are, the kiwis were cheering when they heard that Obama has won.  

I've spent four and a half wonderful days in Wellington.  It was nice getting to know the city.  I was able to catch up on my rest and blog.  I will talk about the second part of my trip in the next post.

Te Papa Museum - Wellington's Finest

YHA Hostel where I stayed

Embassy Theater - Hobbits and Lord of the Rings Movies are Premiered

Waterfront

Cuba Street Mall

A graffiti artist at work

Wellington City Center 

Mt Victoria, red building in background is a monastery

Parliament Buildings

Sailboats on Oriental Bay

Blue Duck Lodge

After leaving Taupo, we drove through some of the most beautiful farmlands to get to Whakahoro (pronounced Fakahoro, "wh" is pronounced like an "f" in Maori).  Our destination was the Blue Duck Lodge, a 9,000 acre high country farm that is both a working station and an environmental conservation leader.  This is the most remote part of North Island and the scenery is simply gorgeous.  There were many activities for us to choose (with a fee, of course):  horseback riding, tour around the farm, clay target shooting, goat hunting, and hiking in the area on your own.  The goat hunting activity became a wild-pig hunting trip because of the rain.  

I picked the farm tour because I wanted to see how they run the farm and managed the sheep.  Unfortunately, our guide decided that she wanted to look for some rare blue ducks that she saw the previous day.  She took us around on a jeep to the waterfall and river to look for the ducks.  It rained that day so we were all slopping in the mud.  We took a short kayak trip on the river but we did not see any ducks.  She did explain some traps that were set out to poison possums and traps to catch stoats, which is a squirrel-like animal, but a little smaller.  Possums are a big problem for New Zealand because they are voracious eater of leaves and would leave a mature tree without leaves and eventually kill the tree.  They have multiplied very quickly since introduced by the Europeans from Australia.

Before man settled in New Zealand 800 years ago (first by Polynesians), there were no mammals in New Zealand.  Most of the birds have lost their ability to fly because there had no predators.  Now New Zealand has many pests like rats, stoats, goats, wild pigs, etc.  The pig-hunting group did not find any pig, even with dogs trained to hunt pigs.  They did shoot a goat however.  

Many of the European travelers enjoyed the clay target shooting.  They have never fired a gun or will never have a chance to fire a gun so this may be their only opportunity.

New Zealand is known for its sheep but we were told that the number of sheep is dwindling because many farmers are switching to cattle.  As you drive along the road approaching a sheep farm, those near the fence would run away because of fear of humans.  I tried to approach a few of them at this farm but they wouldn't let me come close.  I had to use my zoom lens to take pictures of them.  They look so cute and cuddly that I just want to touch them.  Ba....Ba....Ba...no way!

I was told by our guide that the land around this farm were given to NZ soldiers by the government after they returned from World War I.  But the former soldiers had such a hard time clearing the trees that a lot of them finally gave up and gave them back to the government

Blue Duck Lodge Cafe

Whanganui River

Kaiwhakauka Waterfall

Bridge on the farm

These are very intelligent sheep dogs

Mother sheep and her two lambs

A Morning Picturesque View

Volcanoes

One of the things you hear a lot when traveling around the North Island is how much volcanoes have affected the landscape.  Everywhere you go you see the effects on the landscape by volcanoes.  Most are dormant but there are still some active ones.  Hiking through the Tongariro National Park we came across volcanoes that are still active.  (See previous post)

Two of the best known lakes in New Zealand that used to be craters of volcanoes are Lake Rotorua and Lake Taupo.  Both have a lot of lakeside activities and are popular tourist destinations.  Lake Taupo is the largest lake in NZ and (according to our drive/guide) is as big as the island of Singapore.  We stopped in Rotorua for a few hours.  There my friend, Joe and I, were able to enjoy a dip in the geothermal spas at the Polynesian Spa.  It costs NZ$25 each for the day but we only spent a couple of hours there.  The Spa has 7 different pools of different temperatures, mostly around 40C (about 104F).  You can smell the sulphur in the water.  I understand there is no fish in Lake Roturua because of the high sulphur content.

We spent the night at Lake Taupo, which is pretty much a tourist town.  There doesn't seem to be a lot of water-craft activities, although we saw some boats docked at one end of the lake.

Looking at Lake Rotorua from Polynesian Spa

A geothermal spring with bubbling gas

Joe and I having a dip in one of the geothermal pools at Polynesian Spa

Hapu Falls (below) is also used to generate electricity

Hapu Waterfalls

Lake Taupo

Haka

Haka is a traditional Maori war dance that has been popularized by the New Zealand All-Blacks rugby team.  As shown in the YouTube video below, the team would perform this dance to intimidate their opponents.  There is much chanting, slapping, stamping of feet and fierce facial expressions to indicate that they are ready for war.

We were taught how to do the Haka when we visited a Maori family in Maketu in the Bay of Plenty.  Here we were welcomed by Uncle Boy's family and explained about the Maori tradition and ate a traditional Maori meal.  One of the entrees is very similar to how Hawaiians prepare their meat in a luau - burying the animal in the ground and cooking it with a slow fire for a long time.  After the meal we were welcomed with traditional Maori dances and ceremony.  The ladies were taught how to do the Poi dance.  I have videos of us doing the Haka and Poi dances but I had trouble uploading them to this blog.  After all the activities, we all slept in the Marae, which is the Maori's ceremonial hall and is used for sleeping as well.  All the guys had a lot of fun learning how to do the Haka.  We all thought this was one of the best experiences of the trip.

Maori Welcoming Ceremony

Welcoming Ceremony by the Women

Guys wore grass skirts to do the Haka

Girls do the Poi Dance

Tongariro Alpine Crossing

Tongariro is the first National Park in New Zealand.  This is an area of immense beauty with active and dormant volcanoes in the area.  In fact, there was an eruption just in August this year and there were warning signs on our hike about watching out for eruptions and staying away from certain areas.

We were told a little bit about this hike but none of us were prepared for how tough the hike would be.  The distance of the hike is almost 20 km, or about 12 miles.  However, we climbed up about 800m elevation and through different weather conditions.  We started out wearing shorts and T-shirts but by the time we got to the peak of the mountain, we were wearing 3 layers of clothes, with the outer layer being an alpine ski jacket.  Up on the mountains we had to walk through snow and by the time we finished, we were walking through dense forests.  There is steam coming out of some of the mountains.  There is hardly any vegetation up on top.  One of the mountains was "Mount Doom" in the 3rd Lord of the Rings movies.  The hike took about 7-8 hours.  All of us were dead tired and hungry that night but we all thought this was one of the best scenery we have seen so far.

"Mount Doom" from Lord of the Rings movie

Hiking through rugged terrain

A lot of snow as we get to the top

Looking down from one of the trains

A few craters filled with water

There were warning signs everywhere about active volcanoes

Not easy hiking through snow with sneakers

Steam coming out of some of the mountains

On the way down

Dense forests and stream at the bottom of the mountains

Waitomo Caves

This is the second day of our trip.  We are heading towards a place called Maketu.  On the way there, we stopped at a place called Waitomo Caves.  At one time this area was part of the ocean.  A lot of dead sea life was deposited here and eventually became limestone.  After the sea subsided this became a limestone area.  Underground, rivers and streams carve out caves with their stalactites and stalagmites.  The town of Waitomo is a touristy town that is built around these caves.  We were offered many options to experience the caves.  One of them was walking or whatever it takes to go through the caves.  This is called the Tumu Tumu Toobing.  Other options include abseiling (or rappelling, as Americans called it) down a waterfall into the caves.
I chose the Tumu Tumu Toobing, which costs around NZ $140.  I thought it was a simple walk through the caves.  I was wrong.  It was a lot tougher than that.  We had to crawl or squeeze through the caves.  In some places, we had to swim and even tube down the caves.  In one section of the caves, we turn off our lights and saw the glowworms.  To do all this we had to wear wet-suits, boots and miners' helmets.
We were in the caves for about 3 hours and I was physically tired after this.  In some parts, it was even scary but we had a couple of good guides.  At times, we literally had to squeeze through the limestone formation.  It was a worthwhile experience but I don't know if I will do it again.
After Waitomo Caves, we are schedule to drive to a small town called Maketu, on the shore of Lake Rotorua.  That is a different experience.  It will be in the next blog.

Squeezing through a tight spot

Tubing through the caves was part of the experience

Area above the caves - just normal farmland

You'd never know that there are caves below this beautiful area.