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| with Mr Winterberg |
We started our new year in stinky Rotorua - and that's literally stinky. Rotorua sits right in a highly active geothermal area with lots of the heat steaming out of sulfurous holes in the ground or ponds of boiling mud. After sleeping in, taking a swim in the cold pool and then heating up in the hot tubs (all naturally heated of course) we went for a walk to the cities great Kuirau Park, where you can stroll through a wonderland of steam, boiling dirt and colourful stones. You gotta be careful though and stick to the pathways or you might just be boiled by accident... On our way to the city we passed through the pretty, small Maori village Ohinemutu that beautifully sits at the lakeshore with it's wooden, classically decorated houses, a nice old church and the grand wharenui, the sacred meeting house of the Maori. We met a great guy (he called himself Mr. Winterberg after we failed to pronounce his Maori name -'Because that's German you know...') who welcomed us in the traditional manner with a hongi before showing us around and then introducing us to his cousin who was working on his boats. The boats were traditional Maori craftsmanship - beautiful and efficient. One of them was a simple canoe but the other one was in the style of the famous waka that brought the first Maori settlers to NZ. We were invited to come onboard and got to hear stories about the boats' history and lots of jokes about Maori everyday life. We had a great time with these very hospitable awesome guys! And our Maori experience wasn't over for the day because in the evening we went to the Maori village of Mitai for a cultural show.
We got involved in the quite lengthy powhiri, saw different kinds of dances (including the famous haka wardance) and listened to Maori music. After the performance we all shared a tasty Hangi meal. Hangi is still prepared like back in the days - in the ground. The geothermal activity provides enough heat and steam to get done all sorts of meat, potatoes and other vegetables. Add salads, sauces and awesome dessert to that and you understand why this was the best dinner we have had since leaving Thailand... And the excitement still wasn't over after all this. We went to an adjacent little zoolike park for a guided nighttime tour and saw, next to other really cool animals of all sorts, the national bird of NZ - the Kiwi. It was so funny to watch those little fellas, busily running around, digging holes in the ground with their very pointy beak. It is a miracle to me that they don't fall over. With no wings and just a big ball of brown furry feathers as their bodies they just look extremely unbalanced and really delightful.
The next day started with something equally rare like the Kiwi - the Lady Knox geyser. Only very few countries in the world have geysers and there are quite a few around Rotorua. We went to the colourful Wai-o-Tapu Thermal Park on the way to Taupo and discovered the Lady Knox and a huge thermal area on a great walk around. On the way we learned about which chemical in the toxic waters and mud paints the stones in which colour and how the whole area came into being when the Taupo volcano erupted and covered most parts of the central North Island under layers of ash, mud, etc.. The smell eventually drove us away from all geothermal pools after a couple of hours and we were happy to reach fresh Lake Taupo for a break and, later on, the Tongariro National Park. It was the first National Park in NZ and the fourth in the world and it covers the area around three beautiful volcanoes (all of which are still active) that tower over the rugged scenery with their snowcapped peeks.
We went for the famous Tongariro Alpine Crossing which is one of NZ's Great Walks. Since the Tongariro erupted only a couple of weeks ago and the air hasn't cleared up from poisonous gases quite yet, the Crossing isn't a real crossing in the moment since the path is only open to the highest point of the way and all hikers just have to return the way they came from. It didn't matter though, as the highlights were all along the open way. The weather was poor so it was freezing cold up on the mountain and sometimes, in just the blink of an eye, the visibility would drop to zero before clearing up really well. This made for quite a challenging hike, especially since most of the way there is no real path but just some markers and you have to climb your own way up. The surreal environment made up for all the hard work, though.
Old lavaflows, steep mountainsides, icy plains and an astounding variety of plants - there was something new to be explored after every corner. The best part was when we took a side trip from the actual Alpine Crossing and climbed up even higher to conquer the Tongariro peek. Many many people do the crossing but very few go the extra miles up to the top so the reward was solitude and a short glimpse of Taupo and Mount Taranaki in the far distance before the clouds closed in on us again. All in all it was quite a humbling experience to tramp in this harsh but beautiful environment. So the next day, before leaving Tongariro National Park, we went for a couple of more, shorter walks.
One of them lead us to Gollum's pool, another picturesque movie setting - they simply abound. After that we went further west to finish the story... The three volcanoes in the North Island's centre have a brother -mighty Mount Taranaki. Maori legends say that he and his siblings were driven apart when fighting over a girl's love. Taranaki followed the maiden all the way to the west coast where he sits now, far away from his brothers. On his way he formed the beautiful Wanganui river that was filled with his tears...
We followed Taranaki but chose a different path - the scenic Forgotten World Highway. It winds through beautiful backcountry, steep gorges and reminds of the time when European settlers first made a living back there. It was a beautiful drive that found its climax in a breathtaking view of the perfectly shaped Mount Taranaki and the lush, green Egmont National Park around it, encircled by the turquoise waters of the ocean. Of course we tramped on Taranaki but as we didn't have proper gear like ice pickles and the like, we couldn't climb the summit of this one. Instead we had a beautiful half day hike on the mountain's foot, went up over the treeline for a perfect view of the three volcano brothers in the far distance and back down into the deep forest for picture perfect waterfalls, lava pools and thundering mountain streams. When we arrived back at the carpark it proofed right once again that leaving on your car's lights when leaving it for a couple of hours is never a good idea. The real challenge in this first (and hopefully last) jumpstart was to find Rolf's battery...and that proofs that it is always a good idea to familiarize yourself with your rental Campervan before leaving the rental companies parking lot.
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| Whanganui River Road |
After being back on the road we didn't dare getting off of it too soon again, so we went down to Wanganui and took a detour from there to drive along the famous Wanganui River Road. The street follows the river through it's winding valley, leads on mountaintops for awesome views and offers all sorts of great stops along the way. We turned back after some time because we really wanted to go south now, not north. Our next stop - with some overnighting in Foxton Beach and a nice afternoon spent in Paraparaumu Beach - was Wellington. We arrived in the 'Windy City' in the late afternoon on a beautiful, clear day so the obvious choice was to catch a ride on the cable car up the hill to a scenic lookout in the Botanical Garden (needless to say that the weather turned bad when we got up there...but we caught some good views before it turned all cloudy). The park was very nice with lots of informational signs about the native flora and a beautiful rose garden halfway back to the city. On the mountaintop there's also the Wellington Planetarium that we came across by chance just when they got ready for their last show for the day in their half dome. So the two of us and a couple of other ten to twelve years olds learned in quite an impressive movie why and how we are all astronomers. After the movie Jens had decided on a new career path...We also learned lots of cool stuff about the southern hemisphere's night sky and picked up a star map to find all the cool constellations ourselves. Then we wandered around the neat little adjacent museum to find out more about the universe and happened to be the last ones that had to be kicked out because it was way past the Planetarium's closing time... We strolled back down to the city and stopped at the Parliament Buildings for some pictures as they are a very interesting mix of three quite different architectural styles. Then it got to windy for us and we hid inside of Rolf and watched the gigantic ferries coming into the harbour and leaving again from inside our little home while enjoying a hot tea (that being possible because of a ridiculously convenient campground right
in the centre of it all at the waterfront - awesome!). The second day in
Wellington was a beautiful summer day and we spent it walking around
the city, sitting at the waterfront and watching people, indulging in
the famous coffee and running some errands. Most of the time we explored
the great Te Papa museum, though. It is NZ's national museum and has
heaps of cool stuff on offer. We learned about the natural forces that
brought NZ to life and felt them in an earthquake house, saw the biggest
Giant Squid on display in all of the world, listened to stories of
early immigrants and their way to NZ and experienced the country and
it's flora and fauna from mountain to sea without ever leaving that one
enormous expo hall. A seriously cool place to be and so big that a whole
day isn't really enough to see it all. But it's more than enough for
your brain to take it all in, especially if it is in the
long-term-traveller-mode...so we left Te Papa for some more city life
exploring, found that Wellington -in contrast to its great museum - is
really small and we had soon walked everywhere twice and so decided to
say goodbye to the capital and with it the North Island. We were ready
to take the ferry that we'd been watching ourselves
We got involved in the quite lengthy powhiri, saw different kinds of dances (including the famous haka wardance) and listened to Maori music. After the performance we all shared a tasty Hangi meal. Hangi is still prepared like back in the days - in the ground. The geothermal activity provides enough heat and steam to get done all sorts of meat, potatoes and other vegetables. Add salads, sauces and awesome dessert to that and you understand why this was the best dinner we have had since leaving Thailand... And the excitement still wasn't over after all this. We went to an adjacent little zoolike park for a guided nighttime tour and saw, next to other really cool animals of all sorts, the national bird of NZ - the Kiwi. It was so funny to watch those little fellas, busily running around, digging holes in the ground with their very pointy beak. It is a miracle to me that they don't fall over. With no wings and just a big ball of brown furry feathers as their bodies they just look extremely unbalanced and really delightful.
The next day started with something equally rare like the Kiwi - the Lady Knox geyser. Only very few countries in the world have geysers and there are quite a few around Rotorua. We went to the colourful Wai-o-Tapu Thermal Park on the way to Taupo and discovered the Lady Knox and a huge thermal area on a great walk around. On the way we learned about which chemical in the toxic waters and mud paints the stones in which colour and how the whole area came into being when the Taupo volcano erupted and covered most parts of the central North Island under layers of ash, mud, etc.. The smell eventually drove us away from all geothermal pools after a couple of hours and we were happy to reach fresh Lake Taupo for a break and, later on, the Tongariro National Park. It was the first National Park in NZ and the fourth in the world and it covers the area around three beautiful volcanoes (all of which are still active) that tower over the rugged scenery with their snowcapped peeks.
We went for the famous Tongariro Alpine Crossing which is one of NZ's Great Walks. Since the Tongariro erupted only a couple of weeks ago and the air hasn't cleared up from poisonous gases quite yet, the Crossing isn't a real crossing in the moment since the path is only open to the highest point of the way and all hikers just have to return the way they came from. It didn't matter though, as the highlights were all along the open way. The weather was poor so it was freezing cold up on the mountain and sometimes, in just the blink of an eye, the visibility would drop to zero before clearing up really well. This made for quite a challenging hike, especially since most of the way there is no real path but just some markers and you have to climb your own way up. The surreal environment made up for all the hard work, though. 
Old lavaflows, steep mountainsides, icy plains and an astounding variety of plants - there was something new to be explored after every corner. The best part was when we took a side trip from the actual Alpine Crossing and climbed up even higher to conquer the Tongariro peek. Many many people do the crossing but very few go the extra miles up to the top so the reward was solitude and a short glimpse of Taupo and Mount Taranaki in the far distance before the clouds closed in on us again. All in all it was quite a humbling experience to tramp in this harsh but beautiful environment. So the next day, before leaving Tongariro National Park, we went for a couple of more, shorter walks.
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