Te Papa

Yesterday's highlight was a visit to Te Papa Tongarewa, a large new museum on the Wellington waterfront. The name literally means container of treasures. Exhibits on NZ's natural environment and cultural history are well designed and spread over 6 floors. Lots of interactive stuff and things aimed at every age level. We took a guided highlights tour with a young docent (paid) who was good. Gerlinde and I went to see the 2 floors of fine arts after the tour, then back to look at some things the tour had skipped. One of my favorites was an interactive map of NZ on the floor. When you stepped on a part of the country, a screen lit up on the closest wall telling you about it. I showed Gerlinde where we had been and where we were going. Especially impressive was seeing the enormous size of Mt Tongariro and surrounding peaks where we had hiked. I also found the exhibit on the impact of humans on the environment really interesting. Comparing maps of the extent of forest and bush pre-human contact (85%), pre-European arrivals (55%), and today (25%) was instructive. I could see goig back and spending lots more time there.

We also visited a weekly craft fair held in an underground garage on the waterfront, had lunch in a Hare Krishna restaurant, and did part of the Wellington Writers Walk. The last is a series of quotations from NZ writers carved in raised letters and set along the waterfront. They weren't easy to find. I think the search is supposed to be part of the experience. I never found Katherine Mansfield, but there's always today. One of my favorites was a slab floating in the water that read:
I saw the Maori Jesus
Walking on Wellington harbor.
He wore blue dungarees.
His beard and hair were long.
His breath smelt of mussels and paraoa.
When he smiled it looked like dawn.
The author is James K. Baxter

Off to see more of the city.

Wellington

We had 2 lovely days in Napier and surrounding areas, then drove to Wellington today. Our friends, Peter and Gerlinde, had arrived from the US this morning and were out discovering the city when we arrived. They did a lot better with jet lag than we had 2 weeks ago. Peter attributes it to his new vegan diet.

To catch you up, we spent our one full day in Napier seeing a bit more of the city, tasting Hawkes Bay wines, getting a view of the area from the top of a local peak, Te Mata, and on a gannet safari. The last was a 4-wheel drive trip to see the largest mainland colony of gannets in the world. We had been captivated by these blue-eyed, blond-headed seabirds when we saw them 7 or so years ago in Newfoundland. Yesterday we saw their southern hemisphere cousins. These large birds nest in various place around NZ--I had seen some nesting on White's Island. At 15 to 16 months, the black and white chicks fly to Australia for 3 years, then return to NZ to breed. I don't know how the size of the NZ colony compared to what we had seen in Canada, but we were MUCH closer to the birds here. Had we been stupid enough, we could have walked right into the middle of the colony of 4000 birds. Did I mention they are big? And have large beaks? And are pretty aggressive? It was fascinating to watch them.

After our bird safari, we returned to the Esk Valley Lodge for dinner. We have come to appreciate what we call the B&B&D: B&Bs that also offer dinner. Our first experience was at Whangarei, where we found it was easier and cheaper to just stay there. Lupton Lodge offered a set menu you could order from in the morning--all delicious. The place we stayed in Whakatane (for the White's Island trips) offered a set menu they could produce with 60 minutes notice. We had a seafood paella the first night there, for example. Esk Valley was a bit more like Lupton Lodge--they really needed a few hours notice to make sure they had the supplies on hand. However, they also invited us to join them on the verandah for a glass of wine and nibbles (guacamole with incredibly fresh ripe avocado and tomatoes for example). Jess, the husband, offered us a glass of their Semillon. Elaine joined us, the went to walk with friends. The conversation got more and more interesting. Jess decided we needed to try their Sauvignon Blanc, too. We agreed that would be good, but only if we could stay there for dinner. So, for $10 NZ each, we had a simple but wonderful meal of pasta with veggies from their garden and a salad (ditto) and too much great wine to admit to. We did the order-ahead dinner the 2nd night and had a starter of NZ green-lipped mussels followed by homemade NZ lamb and barley soup with garden veggies, then homemade fish and chips with a bunch of different veg dishes, the fish was fresh and local and accompanied by a bit more seafood. This one was $35 NZ each, which was an amazingly low price for the area. Jess and Elaine joined us at the end to share their favorite Wellington sights and restaurants. Jess shared a bottle of their Port, which since he deemed it not quite ready for market he calls Starboard. We could easily have stayed up much of the night talking to Jess and Elaine. They are fascinating people. So, we have become very fond of the B&B&D.

The drive to Wellington was made more interesting by very heavy rain and a long detour. Part of the route goes thru a scenic reserve, a gorge. The road thru the gorge has been closed due to a landslide, which is landslip in Kiwi. The road around the gorge was not designed to carry the truck traffic we saw. It was beautiful but very difficult. There was a huge wind farm on the ridge line -- like the gannets, the windmills were a lot bigger when you were right next to them than they appear from farther away.

The drive also reminded me of some of my less-favorite Kiwi things. We have seen very, very few stop signs in NZ. Instead, almost every intersection is a traffic circle, or roundabout. It's an effective way to slow traffic down. It's also a good way to use more gas on long trips because of course you have to slow down... On the other hand, roundabouts give me a chance to enjoy the triangular warning signs that say "yield" in the US and "give way" in NZ.

In Wellington this afternoon we took the cable car up and walked down thru the botanical gardens. This is a beautiful city, really different from Auckland. But more about that another time.

Paradise again

I'm writing this on the porch (veranda) of our Napier B&B, a place called Esk Valley Lodge. It's a bit north and west of Napier, in an agricultural valley, surrounded by beautiful gardens, fruit trees with chickens enjoying the windfalls, and grape vines. We're staying here because of the reviews that talked about the quiet. I think the insects may be the most noise we hear.

We drove from Whakatane, where Mike had a great time diving on White's Island and I had a great time visiting the island, which is NZ's most active volcano. We got to Napier early enough to do an art deco tour of the city. Napier was destroyed in a 1931 earthquake, the rebuilt in Art Deco style. The Art Deco Trust does a 2-hour tour with volunteer guides. Ours is an Air NZ pilot when he's not doing tours. He did a great job and we had lots of fun walking thru the beautifully maintained downtown.

I've been thinking about all the reasons I love NZ. In no order, they are:
The incredibly friendly people
The beautiful flowers everywhere. I've written about the hydrangeas. Agapanthus is also everywhere, often alternating purple and white. Lots of roses, rose of sharon, and on and on. Many gardens seem to be planted for both visual beauty and scent. Our last B&B was perfumed with all the flowers in the garden
The stunning landscape. Even when there are stretches of clear-cut timber, we've seen mountains beyond. I've written about recognizing volcanic landforms under the vegetation. It's all amazingly varied. The part we've just left has gorgeous inland lakes surrounded by mountains. Napier is on the edge of a shimmering blue-green sea. The physical beauty here is astounding.
The air is really clear. Even driving thru agricultural areas, the air smells really clean.

Dinner is arriving. I'll write more soon.

Pictures

Walking Legends, the company with which we did the Tongariro Crossing, has put photos from our trip on their Facebook page. Try going to http://a7.sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-snc7/400941_10150520945582569_87272982568_9158933_888547363_n.jpg?dl=1

Adventure

We have found internet availability to be rarer than we anticipated, which is at least one reason I haven’t kept this blog up-to-date.  I’m writing this at Blossom Cottage in Rotorua.  It’s a lovely 2-bedroom cottage with everything you could possibly want except internet.  A trip to find an internet café in downtown Rotorua got us to a Starbucks, where $3 (each) for 60 gig got us about 20 minutes of checking email.  So, I will post this the next internet availability we get.

Our trip from Whangarei to National Park was long but mostly beautiful.  The landscape changes significantly south of Auckland.  We saw a lot of relatively flat farmland surrounded by ever less distant volcanically-formed mountains.  We continued to see amazing flowers, including hedges of hydrangeas in every hue from pale pink to deep magenta, purple, and blue.  We even saw them growing wild.  As we got closer to our destination (say the last 2 hours), the road wound through a clearly volcanic landscape—we had seen those landforms in Hawaii—but almost all covered with grass.  Many of the hillsides were populated with cows and sheep.  We saw evidence of ongoing logging, too.  Our primary impression was that the landscape was stunning. 

We stayed that night in the Tongariro Crossing Lodge, a comfortable place where we once again had a suite, although this one with much smaller rooms than Lupton Lodge in Whangerei.  An early dinner of South Island salmon and my first NZ sweet potato, called kumara, and early to bed so we’d be ready for our 7:40 am pick up for the Tongariro Crossing hike.  This is classed as one of NZ’s “Great Walks,” and we could see why.  We went with a guide from Walking Legends, for which we were very grateful.  You may have heard us talk about rafting down the Grand Canyon as one of the things that everyone who can should do.  This hike is another of those things.  You can see pictures and read about the track at http://www.tongarirocrossing.org.nz/  There are some pretty good pictures at that site, at least the best until Mike gets his photos from the memory card.

A jitney took us and a couple from Northern Ireland to the trail head, where we saw busloads of hikers getting ready for the hike.  That included lining up for one of the 3 toilets on the trail.  One advantage of going with a guide was that he carried toilet paper, something the toilets lacked.  It was cold and cloudy when we started—we were ready for cold, high winds on the ridges.  There were lines of hikers at first, and we couldn’t really see much, so we had our doubts.

The day cleared up and the mountains came out.  The biggest is Ngauruhoe, which fans of the Lord of the Rings movies know as Mt. Doom.  We walked around a lot of that volcanic dome and had great views of mountains all around, including Mt. Tongariro and Mt. Ruapehu, both of which had snow.  We hiked through or around the South Crater, Central Crater, and Red Crater.  We saw bright turquoise lakes, freshwater springs, thermal springs, and even Lake Taupo in the distance.  Part of what made it amazing was the variety of scenery—different from Haleakela which is impressive but a lot of the same thing. 

Our guide was full of stories.  We particularly enjoyed his stories about things he had told other clients that they believed.  For example, Lake Taupo was formed when a volcano erupted in 186 AD—the largest eruption in the past 5,000 years anywhere on the planet.  The tsunami that followed this massive eruption washed dolphins into the area where we were hiking. Our guide, Chris, told this story at one of the lakes.  His clients immediately started looking for dolphins in the lake, so he obliged them by telling them to watch for ripples.  At the same lake, he had clients believing that they had just missed the period with boats on the lake and beach cabanas and concessions all around the shore.  This is a place in the middle of a World Heritage Site and remote from any roads.  It was great.

We hiked a bit over 19 kilometers and did an elevation change of about 3,000 feet up & back down.  Today we were really sore.  We treated ourselves to a day off.  The major activity was visiting a Maori-run thermal spa called Hell’s Gate, given that name by George Bernard Shaw when he visited in 1938. We did the walking tour of the extensive geothermal area, then did a mud bath, thermal springs bath, and a 1-hour massage.  The finale was a cup of manuka tea and a muffin.  The major activity after that, aside from trying to find a wifi spot, was to get Indian take-away to eat at our lovely cottage and to was our bathing suits in ammonia to counteract the sulfur smell. 

Tomorrow we’re off to Whakatane for another sea adventure.  

At sea

Mike spent the last two days diving at Poor Knights Islands, about 20 kilometers off Tutukaka, east coast of the north island. He did 4 dives, saw fabulous fish and rays, incredible colors, and amazing underwater land formations. He was put with the senior divers, which he loved. He reported on great stories and advice. He's already trying to figure out how he can get to dive in Borneo and Cuba.

While Mike was diving, I went on "a perfect day" with the same outfit. We left a few hours later to get to the same area where we could snorkel, kayak, or just sit on the boat and enjoy the scenery. Highlights of the day included going slowly thru a huge pod of dolphins. They circled around and under the boat, exhibiting behavior I have seen in aquarium shows. It's a lot better in the wild. The best was when 8 or 10 of them swam in a line, leaping together thru the waves. Australasian gannets were plentiful, too, diving for the same food the dolphins were pursuing. Another highflight was seeing thousands of Bullers shearwater. They are an endemic species that nests only om Poor Knights islands. At a population of 2.5 million, that works out to a density of 1 bird per sq. meter of island. Good thing they only lay one egg per burrow, which is how they nest. The third highlight was all the interesting people I met, including lots of vacationing New Zealanders.

The second day, I went trekking, the Kiwi term for hiking. The distance wasn't great, but I climbed some very steep hills--with my pack on, of corse, for training. Since I had forgotten to bring a towel I couldn't swim on the beach at the end of the hike. So, I came back to our lovely B&B and swam in their pool, ate lunch on our personal verandah, and set off in pursuit of culture. I visited an old quarry that has been repurposed for artists' studios and shops. Lots of artists were still on holiday, but I got to talk to a wood turner, a printmaker who is trying to revive old printing techniques, and a US transplant who is painting NZ landscapes. I checked out a few more galleries elsewhere in town and enjoyed the variety of work I saw. Good thing we're already at the wt limit for our luggage.

Dinner was Thai takeaway eaten on our verandah. That was a change from our 1st two nights here when we enjoyed our host Andy's exquisite cuisine. This would be the moment to say that Lupton Lodge, where we're staying, follows environmentally sustainable practices. Most of the fruit we enjoyed was from their orchard, breakfast eggs from their chickens. Vegetable were all local, too. Andy and his wife Karen were great hosts, very helpful and fun to talk to. I got to meet their two little daughters, Maya and Zoe.

Today we're off to National Park, a nearly 7-hour drive south. Tomorrow we hike the Tongariro Crossing, weather permitting. I'll write again when we're back in wifi connectivity.

NZ Map

In case you'd like to see a map of New Zealand, here's where you can find one:   http://g.co/maps/nsaby
Our first four nights in NZ will be in Auckland--check out the location below.