Criss-Crossing New Zealand’s North Island

Sometimes when travelling you just need a reset every now and again. That was very much what I needed this past week. I was being too down about things and unable to enjoy my time in places as well as suffering from exhaustion a lot. In New Zealand I am presently on Stray Travel’s hop-on and hop-off bus, and I’m pretty certain this is what has helped with the reset. Having a lot of people around all the time certainly helps anyway.


The tour started on Friday morning and I had to find my way to another hostel 10 minutes away from mine to be picked up. As the way is in Auckland each little neighbourhood seems to be at a huge elevation change from the previous. So I got a little work out pulling my rather heavy bag up these rather quite steep hills to get to this second hostel. I was feeling surprisingly fresh actually, considering I’d had maybe 5 or 6 hours sleep after the previous night’s exhaustions at The National. Anyway the bus was late, a good half hour actually and when it arrived the thing was completely packed with only a couple of seats spare. After being warned off one of the seats due to a drip I made it to the back of the bus and to a rather uncomfortable sleep. And the people sat around me weren’t exactly talkative. I must admit my first thoughts were rather, hmmm? The bus can hold about 36 people. This might sound like a lot but the other companies Magic and Kiwi Experience are about 50 people. I must admit I’d hoped the group would be a little smaller. Thirty odd is just too many people and half the people you probably wont talk too. Well at least not on a sober day!


Anyway we had a quick photo stop at a ‘dormant’ volcano Mt Eden. I’m not exactly sure when it last blew up, but quite a long time ago. I’m writing this offline so no way to check, and I doubt I can be bothered to go back and edit it. It’s quite a small hill really and doesn’t look like to me it’s erupted anytime in a few thousand years. But hey what do I know?


We headed out towards Hahei Beach after this, with the town of Thames acting as our lunch stop. It’s called as such because the river that flows through it apparently looks like its namesake. I didn’t really see the resemblance personally. And for lunch I was a good boy and thought off the guilty temptation for a McDonalds and managed to get a sandwich from a small bakery. I should start avoiding Subway too really.


We got to Hahei Beach and to the campsite where we were staying. We stayed in dorms though not camping. Eight of us crammed into this small hut with bunk beds lining it pretty tightly and a single at the end. Certainly not much space to move. At first feeling rather tired I almost stayed in the room and took a nap, however when everyone else was going to the beach I decided to come along. At first I was just hanging out with a bunch of Dutch girls who were in the room, but gradually we managed to get a few others from the group to join along. We ended up on a walk towards Cathedral Cove, which took us up off the beach and over the rock faces before heading back down to this little beach surrounded by high rocks. The whole area was quite reminiscent of the pictures you see of some places in Thailand.


Dinner that evening was a group barbecue. It went down pretty well, Steak, Sausage and Corn were the main ingredients. It was good food, although the Steak wasn’t much to write home about! By this time I’d cracked into a bottle of wine and was getting rather chatty. There was a desert served too which I tried a little of. It was as usual too sweet for me though. That evening we were going down to Hot Springs Beach. Where there is surprisingly some hot pools. I had about 1 glass worth of wine left in my bottle so I brought that to the beach with me. Many other people found it rather amusing to see me swigging from the bottle whilst on the beach. Now enough about the alcohol. On the beach there were parts where the sand and water was blisteringly hot, and the ocean would sweep in and cool it down, now trying to find some happy medium with enough water where a bunch of you could sit down and enjoy it was the aim. The aim was never quite found though, unless you can with stand some serious heat though! It was good fun and quite a cool way to meet a bunch of people on the trip.


The next day we had an early start, I’d been poorly organized and not bought any milk, so my breakfast was just eating crunchy nut cornflakes straight from the box and a banana! We drove pretty much straight from one side of the North Island to the other and to Raglan. This place is a popular surfing place. A brief lunch & supplies stop in town and we headed up to the hostel we were staying at. Very much out of the way some 12km from town and up in the hills, this place whilst not the nicest facility wise couldn’t have been in much more of a picturesque venue. It was nestled away on the hillside with log cabins lining the slope nestled away in between the foliage. Others ventured out for surfing lessons or headed down to the beach. I just chilled at the hostel waiting for the evening when a lot of us were going on a ‘Sunset Harbour Cruise’. It was fairly cheap at $20, but there was clearly some confusion over exactly if there was some food or beer included in the price. Many were under the impression something was included, a beer at least. Turns out it wasn’t and it all flared up slightly when one of the girls on the tour confronted the tour leader about misleading everyone.


Anyway once that and the fact a rather mediocre Bratwurst cost a rather rough $9 people just started enjoying the cruise. I must admit I expected it to go out to the open water a little more, but it very much stayed inside the harbour/river. It eventually stopped and allowed a bunch of people to jump of the boat into the water. I’m not quite sure how, but I’m pretty certain I managed to spend $40 on alcohol and food whilst on the boat. Then it rather annoyingly finished just as the sun was just heading behind the mountains, not allowing half an hour extra for some really special colours to develop. On the way back to the hostel most people were in a rather buoyant mood and a bottle shop stop was in store. I wasn’t sure how much I’d drink, but I got a 6 pack anyway. Four beers later and I’m in this old barn with a stereo blurting out Cigarettes & Alcohol with about 12 other people in the room at 1am. Great!


The next morning was rough though. A 6.45am alarm and rushing to get ready to leave. That said I was fairing quite a bit better than a few of the girls who’d make me feel very sober in comparison for most of the previous night! We were heading out to an area which has a lot of caves. A bunch of people were doing abseiling. I’d gone for the half the price rather gentle caves tour! Given my current state after what was a 9th consecutive night of drinking – erm yeah that happens sometimes whilst travelling. (I’m having a few days sober right now!).


Anna and Kerry who were doing it with me were feeling a bit worse, well Anna especially who was really quite ill. It was a very hot day too, the sun here in NZ feels even stronger than it does in Australia. The cave tour as warned was very pedestrian. The main point was to see glow worms, which was pretty cool really once all the lights were switched out. Trouble was that also made it really hard to stay awake – especially on this really gentle slow boat ride they did through part of the caves. There was a family on this trip that were from the UK originally I think, but now living in New Zealand. They had a kid who had some kind of mental difficulties. That said his quizzical nature was really quite fascinating, if a little difficult to know exactly how to answer. When asking about my travelling and I said I had 5.5 weeks in New Zealand, he merely replied “Why?” I must admit I didn’t try to explain. He was also slightly obsessed with Dragons and wanted to know when we’d find them in the caves. We did our best to keep the pretence up. We went round two caves, the first was rather undeveloped and just a stone path to see, it had a stream flowing through and the way the glow worms lit it up was really enchanting. The second was a lot more ‘commercialised’ if you like. There was a generator to light up the entire path and there were conveniently placed bones of animals that had died in the past here. Dragon meals we mused. The tour was okay really, but not particularly awesome, mostly tempered by the $60 price tag really.


We made our way over to Makatu, where we were to be treated to a Maori cultural night! Firstly we stopped in some random town where I made sure I got hold of a much needed burger and chips from a local cafe. I’d needed that grease all day and it was now 4pm!


Whilst we were heading over to our overnight stop Chase the driver of the bus was telling us about a bunch of Maori stuff. None of it I can really remember, but it ended up with everyone getting drawings done on their faces. The men get the more interesting patterns – for once! When we arrived at the place we were greeted by the guy who runs the thing. Once again I’m crap at names and can’t remember his. I’ll try to remember to ask around. This chap was in his 70s and has been doing this for years and had several thousand people pass through his home.


The area we stayed in was basically a cafeteria with a sports hall next to it, we were briefed on the evening’s activities and served dinner, which was a proper cooked meal and really appreciated. Even though I’d only had burger and chips a few hours earlier, it all went down! So our group was to be a tribe and we were challenging or visiting the host tribe. Johan, a Swedish chap was chosen as our tribe leader, basically because he was the oldest guy. All the men were then ‘warriors’ with women resigned to being ‘others’. When we walked into the main area we had to follow in a traditional Maori tribe confrontation. This is where the warriors of the others do a series of dances around the approaching tribes with the intention of scaring the other tribe. But at the same time they offer a welcome gift, which should be accepted as a token of friendship. Which it was. We were warned not to laugh or smile during this introductionary dance, and if the token was dropped or not accepted then we’d have to leave! Anyway then everyone had to greet everyone else by saying Kaori and then shaking and a meeting of the noses of everyone – with too many people trying to headbutt you though!


The host tribe then played us a bunch of traditional Maori folk songs, followed by the Haka, which the All Blacks rugby team do before games! This was what all the guys on our tour were going to learn. And the girls were going to learn some dance. Trying to learn the words, and moves and keep the beat was quite some challenge. I didn’t really master it and was about half a move behind. We did have the words up on a board to read whilst we did it, but as soon as you start thinking about them you forget what you’re meant to do with your arms or loose the beat with your foot! Either way it was enormous fun really! The hall that we used for the show was then converted into a huge sleeping hall with 30 odd people in there! I didn’t really fancy that and promptly grabbed a spot on the patio and rolled my sleeping bag. You can’t beat sleeping under the stars!


Finally, today. We left early in the morning and headed out to Rotorua. This town has a bunch of white water rafting activities and also a gondola where at the top people can go on sanitized luges! I and a few of the girls from the bus stopped at a rather cool coffee shop before wandering around the town looking in a few shops. I was really keen to buy a book, having finished my last one in Canberra I needed something new to read. Books here and NZ seem really expensive though, even the most standard paperbacks are pushing $30! After looking in the third bookstore, and all but one of the others leaving me behind I took the plunge and paid $43 for a book about a couple who went around the world without flying at any point. My rational being that the $43 book will stop me paying a lot more on other more expensive activities, like drinking every night and expensive not really needed adrenalin rush activities! Not sure that’s gonna happen though, I’ve already read 100 of the 300 pages today!


Then I went to try and catch up with Kerrie a Scottish girl who was in turn trying to catch up with the others who’d gone on ahead whilst we were looking at books. We were heading back towards the lake where we’d planned to do a walk around. Anyway we couldn’t find the others and were pondering what to do when a New Zealand couple comes over and offers us free tickets up the gondola! We’re like yeah sure but we’re not really sure how to get there or anything! After wandering away unsure how to get there we go back and ask them how to do so and they end up giving us a lift there too! There’s no way we’d have been able to walk there as we only had just over an hour left before being picked up. Anyway we hurry up the gondola, which has some random dinosaur models near the bottom of the hill it goes up, and then wander around at the top for 5 minutes quickly snapping photographs of the surrounding area before heading straight back down, a little unsure how to catch the bus back into town or how often it came. We’d been told 30 minutes but couldn’t see a bus stop anywhere! Anyway we start walking back looking nervously over our shoulders every 30 seconds when another random car pulls over and offers us a lift into town! So yeah we got all that for free in the last hour!


We headed over to Taupo after this, making a few stops along the way. First for some boiling mud, secondly for some natural hot springs and thirdly for a rather rapid waterfall. Then when we arrived in Taupo we headed down to the lake with a bunch of people to try and hire kayaks. As it turned out they only had two double kayaks, so Stefan, Adi and I decided it wasn’t worthwhile on a single, and I was especially apprehensive about doing it on a single for obvious reasons. So we just chilled on the shore whilst they went. They ended up heading back with 15 minutes left and had enough so I went out with Addie and we pottered around for 10 minutes in the lake which was really kinda cool.


Tuesday was spent in National Park where we originally wanted to do the Tongariro Alpine crossing however bad weather meant it was cancelled and we had to make do with a few smaller walks and then check into the hostel early. Despite the poor weather the walk was good fun and once we got to the hostel we got the Jacuzzi opened and I finished off a bottle of red wine! Then followed it by a fine steak for dinner! Good times.


The next day we headed down to Wellington, my final stop on the North Island for now. I didn’t do much and had a real early start the next morning to catch the ferry to the South Island. On my way back through the North Island I plan to spend more time at Wellington and to stop again at the National Park for another chance to do the crossing. Anyway that’s about all for now, I’m already halfway down the South Island and skipped over a lot of details that I quite wanted to add in this post already! I’ll try to catch up soon, ciao.


Written on 17th January 2010, Edited on 23rd January 2010.