NZ Trip - Day 1 to 3

Day 1

On the first day, we drove from Auckland to Rotorua and went for a hot spring experience at Hell’s Gate. We first did a walk around the geothermal reserve with hot springs, geysers venting hot fumes and boiling mud pools. The sulfur smell was incredibly strong and quite bad. We then went for a warm mud bath at 40oC and washed off the mud in a cold shower - going into a cold shower after the warm bath wasn’t a nice transition, however it was surprising that after awhile the cold icy water actually felt nice and refreshing. Then there was the option of going into sulfur spas. Why would people want to smell sulfur let alone bathe in it?! Apparently because of its healing and relaxing properties. The spas were available at low and high sulfur concentrations - of course I wanted to try the high dose where the water was opaque yellow. The sulfur bath was hot but ohh so relaxing - perhaps one of the most comfortable things I’ve done!

Hell's Gate geothermal reserve

Day 2

The next day with our residual sulfur stench (which was impossible to completely remove) we went mountain biking with Planet Bikes. The Whakarewarewa Forest in Rotorua is known for it’s MTB trails and it was pretty busy there. I haven’t ridden a bike for some time but soon familiarized myself with a couple of loops around the carpark. Then off we went with our guide for some much anticipated mountain biking. We first rode on a kids trail – even this seemed scary and terribly bumpy at first. I soon discovered that the bike had pretty good suspension and learnt to rise out of the sit during ‘big’ bumps. We later upgraded to grade 2 (there were a total of 5 grades of MTB trails). This was harder and we had to sometimes get off and push the bikes up hills – it somehow just did not want to go up. And talk about going down! Once I thought I’d do a big step down on the bike, but I lost control a bit and nearly rolled off the trail to some mushy forest below! I must say that MTB was really fun and gave a sure-fire adrenaline rush, I’ll see if I can get to do some back in CA.

MTB in Whakarewarewa Forest (Rotorua)

Easier way up for me (harder way up for pros)

We then drove around Rotorua’s 16 lakes. The lakes were literally one after another. The most spectacular one was Lake Tikitapu or simply the Blue Lake. This lake was indeed the purest blue verging on aqua color.

Blue Lake (Lake Tikitapu)

For the night, we stayed in Lake Aniwhenua Lodge that was situated in a valley half way between Rotorua and Te Urewera National Park (where we’d be hiking the following day). The old lady showed us the communal shower, lounge and kitchen. This was going to be the first time in a long time since I’d be using a communal shower. I was also super excited to see that we will be sleeping on double bunk beds! Don’t know why, maybe cos it reminds me of been a kid again - without a worry in the world! :D

Day 3

We got up at 4am, ate some breakfast that we had gathered from a small local grocery store the previous day, packed and left the lodge 5am on the dot.

The drive to Te Urewera National Park on route 38 was through mountains on unconcealed winding road with a speed limit of 100km/hr. This would all have been very well except this 2 way road was unmarked and too narrow to fit 2 cars! So there were 3 tire tracks, the middle one marked by car tires coming from opposite directions. Thankfully through this drive there was only one car coming from the opposite direction – it was a close shave though! Along the way, there were plenty of sheep and cows (as with driving in NZ) and they stood on steep cliffs yet looked perfectly happy munching away on grass etc. There were also many horses, I wonder what people use horses for here? Nevertheless I got to take some nice ‘wild’ horse pictures. We also came across a man in army clothing carrying a gun walking by the side of the road. As we drove past he was examining us which was disturbing to say the least.

Wild horses in NZ countryside

After roughly 3 hours of this crazy drive, we finally arrived at our destination, Onepoto. This is the start of the Lake Waikaremoana Great Walk which skirts around the lake and takes 3-4 days to finish. Due to our time constraint and the fact that we don’t particularly enjoy the sanitary aspect of camping, we decided to do the first stretch from Onepoto to Panekire Hut and descend back down to Onepoto on the same day. According to the DOC, this is the most strenuous part of the trip and takes 5hours one way. Off we went high-spirited (at least I was!) to begin this hike. I must say that it was an interesting sight - trees, mosses and ferns were everywhere, they were so dense that only small patches of sunlight seeped through. And earth was carved to expose giant tree roots that were used as steps! There were lots of steep climbs and I was afraid to look back down because I’m super scared of heights (had nightmares about falling off cliffs when I was young only to find out when I was awake that I was hanging from the bed trying desperately not to fall to the ground - which was only a couple of inches down). So as I was climbing, I was dreading the descent down that afternoon. After nearly an hour of continuous climbing, we were finally on flatter terrain. I was happy to know that the climb and subsequently the descent down was over for the moment whilst bix was happy that she can start eating her chips (or ‘chirps’ as the kiwis call it). During our climb up, everyone we crossed paths with greeted us warmly. I thought this was pleasant and refreshing so during our descent down, I greeted everyone coming up to carry on this nice little tradition. By the way, the descent wasn’t bad at all, by that time I was used to the terrain and was jumping around and down the steps! At a little after 6pm, we were back at Onepoto, the hike took around 10hours and it was time for our drive to our accommodation for the night which was in Taupo. The fastest route to Taupo would be to drive back on 38. But driving on that unconcealed road with lanes shared by incoming cars with cliffs and at night?! Nope, that would simply be insane. So instead we took the longer but safer route to Taupo.

Lake Waikaremoana Great Walk - The climb up

Here comes bix with her chips

Overlooking Lake Waikaremoana

On the way we passed Napier and had dinner there at 9pm, we were totally famished by then. The restaurant was closing but was able to make our meal. I wanted to have an apple cider while we waited for our order but left my ID in the car. The amusing lady owner pulled up a chair and sat down on the table with us as if to see who’d give in first – alright, off I went to grab my ID.

We still had nearly 2 hours of drive to Taupo. The road was smooth albeit little winding (which we have come to accept as a common occurrence in NZ). There were many trucks on the same route with us. In fact, if I recall correctly, other than those trucks, we were the only ‘small’ vehicle there. At first, there were passing lanes so we were able to overtake some huge trucks. Then we came to a rather slow moving truck but there were no passing lanes and the only way to overtake would be to cross to the incoming traffic from the opposite side. One of the trucks that we had overtaken earlier had by this time caught up with us. So now we were sandwiched between 2 trucks – not a good position to be in especially if you were in a hatchback. The truck in front of us indicated left turn signal several times, we wondered if he was trying to tell us that there were no cars coming and so it was safe to overtake him? We thought we shouldn’t risk it given it’s dark, we couldn't see anything past the truck and it’s very likely that our crappy Getz would stall at some speed and refuse to go faster during the overtake. After awhile, he slowed, pulled over to the unpaved side and allowed us to safely pass (along with the faster truck behind us). We were amazed. In fact, most drivers in NZ are like this, and we have encountered several other instances where they’d pull over to give way to us. Once a tow truck nearly busted his tire whilst letting us pass! I’m real surprised and grateful to see such conscientious drivers in NZ!