Road Trip - Kiwi Style

This is the first time we have been able to access the Internet in four days, so this blog post is a little overdue (especially considering everything we have been up to!) Hopefully this entry isn’t too long :) On Tuesday morning we picked up our rental car in Auckland and were very pleasantly surprised with what we ended up with. We are driving a silver station wagon, a 2004 Nissan Wingroad. The interior is actually a lot nicer than expected with a good radio, A/C and power locks/windows. We love it! Keith has done most of the driving and is starting to get the hang of driving on the left hand side of the road, and having the windshield wipers on the left and turn signal on the right. My job has been navigator, accommodation finder, and activities coordinator…so much responsibility! Our Lonely Planet guide will be falling apart from overuse by the end of this road trip. We packed up everything and grabbed some groceries before heading south out of Auckland and then west to the Coromandel Peninsula. Before this trip, I had never really heard about this area, and I don’t know why; it was amazing. We drove NZ’s version of the Pacific Coast Highway, which was beautiful but soo curvy. On our way to Whitianga (on the east coast), we saw the option to veer off of the main highway and take an unpaved, back road instead; so of course we did. It was definitely worth it. We made a few stops along the way to walk through a Kauri Tree Grove (huge, wide ancient trees), and walk to a waterfall which you could actually swim under. We made it into the small beach town around 6:00 pm not having anywhere booked, so we stopped at a campsite and they had spots available. After we pitched our little tent (using the same tent my Dad used when he was traveling), we cooked a pasta dinner that worked out to costing us 75 cents each. Not too bad. Then we headed to the beach, walked along the sand and looked at seashells. After the sun set, we did some trip planning back at the campsite and played some cards before bed.

The next morning we woke up to rain, and some small puddles in our tent; nothing too bad though. We quickly packed up and got back on the road, making a quick detour northwest. Thanks to a local newsletter we had checked out, we learned about New Chums Beach; which is rated one of the top ten ‘deserted’ beaches in the world. Once we found out how to get to it, we could understand why. First, we had to cross through water at a point where the ocean met a river. With clothes over our bathing suits, we took off our runners and waded along a sand bar, where the water was only up to our knees.  A couple of minutes later, just over the half way mark, the water got much deeper. I held up both pairs of shoes, while Keith held the backpack over his head to protect our passports inside. We started toward shore and at one point, I was up to my shoulders in water. The whole time I was laughing soo hard. I just loved it, and thought it was hilarious. We made it to shore safely with everything dry except for ourselves. Then it was time to strap back on the shoes and hike up and down a narrow path through dense forest. About 20 minutes later, we came to a clearing and saw one of the most beautiful sights I have ever seen. A massive, beautiful beach…and we had it completely to ourselves. There were no footprints on the sand except for our own; I have never experienced anything like it. We spent a couple hours there playing in the water and just relaxing on the sand; true paradise. Although it was hard to leave, we had to get back on the road. From there, we headed back down south along the coast and ended up at Hot Water Beach. There are geothermal cracks directly underneath certain areas on this beach, which cause hot steam to seep up to the surface, heating the water. Everyone rents ‘spades’ (shovels) and heads down to the beach during low tide to dig themselves a hot water spa in the sand; worked pretty good! The rest of the night was spent setting up our tent, cooking dinner and more trip planning.

Thursday morning, we woke up feeling ambitious and wanting to make it to Cathedral Cove. Normally there is a walking trail that leads to this famous part of the coast, but it was closed because of landslides caused by the big storm a couple weeks ago. There was a sign at the trail head mentioning it was about a ten minute swim from another cove, so we walked down intending on swimming the extra distance. Once we got down there and into the water, we realized it might be a little harder than the sign suggested. We got there during high tide on a cloudy day, so the waves were very strong. We swam for about ten minutes just getting to an outcrop of rocks and were already pretty exhausted. After talking to other swimmers, we decided not to go for it. The only people who seemed to be doing the swim were those with flippers on. We were really disappointed, but our swimming skills just didn’t seem up to par for the risk of crashing into the rocks. Something to see next time! Then back on the road for a couple hours until we came to the Karangahake Gorge Historic Walkway, which followed the river along an old railroad track. It wasn’t actually as exciting as we anticipated so we didn’t end up doing the full 5 km. That night was spent in Tauranga at another campsite. We took the opportunity to do some laundry and have a late dinner before heading into town. There was a really cool street along the waterfront called ‘The Strand,’ where all the bars are. We stopped at a few different patios for some beers; it was a really fun atmosphere. Around 1:00 am, it started pouring rain so we rushed back to the campsite to close up our tent and take our clothes off the dying rack. Everything was pretty soaked.

After sleeping in a little bit the next morning, we drove over to the beach (part of the Bay of Plenty). It was raining pretty hard, but we still decided to climb up to the summit of Mt. Maunganui (235 m).  This didn’t take us too long, but unfortunately the view from the top wasn’t very clear due to all the rain. We hurried back down pretty quick because we were soaked, and then drove on to Rotorua. When we arrived, the weather was still cold and rainy which would hinder a lot of out outdoor plans, so we made the decision to drive through and hit it on our way back up to Auckland in a couple weeks.  That brought us down to Taupo, which is where we are now. The town is on the edge of Lake Taupo; New Zealand’s largest lake, which is roughly the size of Singapore. We tried three different hostels that were all full before finding a place to stay at a hostel/motel. It’s really nice and the owners let us have a room to ourselves for the price of a dorm room; a nice break from camping in the rain for a couple nights. We are having so much fun just showing up in places and finding accommodation as we go; such a different style trip from our Europe trip, much more relaxed and spontaneous. More good times to come! Ps. I will add pictures later when we have free Internet!