Ahhh….New Zealand. Aotearoa. Land of the Long White Cloud, the Maori, the All Blacks, the Hobbit, the elusive Kiwi. You were a hard entry. Not since September, when we flew Vancouver to London, have we been so entirely, completely messed up by time zones and jet lag.
The flight from Perth to Auckland is only 5 hours long, but crosses 5.5 time zones. Our flight skirted Cyclone Cook (can you say ‘Atavan’?), landing in New Zealand just after midnight for us (or 6am NZ time). We went directly to our hotel and fell soundly asleep. We woke up at 3pm and spent the next 5 days trying to shake the cobwebs from our brains. I remember being very cranky, but I don’t remember much else. Oh, except that the hotel had free laundry. Yay.
When we finally emerged from our jet-laggy haze and into the streets of Auckland, we were all immediately struck by a violent cross-wind of homesickness.
Beautiful, clean, rainy Auckland looks like Vancouver, smells like Vancouver, feels like Vancouver. But where, oh where, were our people?
We had only two days to explore before heading to the campervan dealership to pick up Beast No. 2, affectionately known as Mr. Baggins.
We had planned out a rough itinerary of the North Island, but the rain gods laughed and things took a different turn. We headed north from Auckland on our way to the Bay of Islands. We got as far as the adorable village of Matakana and spent two soggy days checking out the beautiful countryside and a fantastic farmer’s market.
It felt like we were driving through a movie set – countless sheep and rolling green hills, fluffy white clouds and roadside stands hawking beeswax and lavender honey. In Matakana, we drank good coffee, ate oysters, enjoyed gorgeous public toilets and played along the streams. Lucy, Tom and I also managed to see “Beauty and the Beast” at the world’s most beautiful movie theatre where wine and artisanal ice cream cones are delivered to your seat. Hard to be too homesick when you’re eating raspberry ice cream and watching movies.
nicest public toilets ever….
After studying a very ominous weather forecast, we scrapped plans to head north and instead turned south, bound for the Coromandel Peninsula.
We pulled into a campground near the beach town of Hahei for a few nights. Our site (with requisite bounce pillow) was amazing – across from the beach with loads of room to roam, go-karts and trees to climb and kids galore. Next time, we’ll skip the whole motorhome fiasco and just stay in their adorable little ‘bach’ cabins.
We set up Mr. Baggins, grabbed our shovels and headed down to this strange and wonderful phenomenon known as ‘Hot Water Beach’. At low tide, you walk along the sand until you feel the hot springs beneath your feet. Bingo, start digging. Before long, you’ve dug your own beachfront hot-tub, along with dozens (hundreds?) of others, where you can watch the sunset and dip into the waves if you get too hot. It’s a bit of a science because you need to construct little channels to allow enough cold water into your pool to make it bearable. The kids loved it – engineering elaborate dam systems and outlets. We returned each day with improved technique.
And then, without further ado…the rains started. And they didn’t stop. Torrential, howling rains with Cyclone Debbie weather advisories, tsunami sirens going off in the night and water coursing down the inside of Mr. Baggins. (And yeah, yeah, I can see all you Vancouverites rolling your eyes and feeling so so sorry for us…but 5 people, one motorhome and endless, endless rain…have mercy!). It also kicked off a series of unfortunate events…
We hunkered down in Hahei as Cyclone Debbie was about to make landfall. At our waterfront site, we were buffeted by ferocious winds and rain, so decided to move inland. In our waterlogged haste, we neglected to store the electrical plug, duly drove over it, smashed it to smithereens and spent the next 24 hrs without electrical power, relying solely on a dying battery. Then, roads washed out, stores closed and boarded up, children wet, cranky and homesick, we finally found an electrician to replace the cord. He met us at the side of a country road, extorted a princely sum and sped off. The cord didn’t fit (and of course we didn’t check first). So we called and, surprise, he answered. He told us to meet him at his house in the middle of nowhere….With no other viable options, off we went. Dummies. This little excursion involved hydroplaning over roads, crashing into said electrician’s fence and gouging the side of the motorhome in the process. Oh, and did I mention that we declined the extra insurance on the motorhome?
But at least we had power.
The ‘Cyclone Debbie Days’ will be remembered as the lowest point of the trip (knock wood). We all wanted out. Pull the plug. Go home. Sick of the confined space, the rain, each other. There were tears. Mostly mine.
We were plowing $20 worth of quarters into the campground’s dryers every single day to keep ourselves from growing mushrooms behind our ears. The bedding was wet, the walls were wet. The food was wet. Well, you get the picture.
On the bright side, we got a LOT of reading, homework and trip planning done. We watched a LOT of movies. And the kids didn’t break any bones jumping on the soaking, slippery bounce pillows.
After a few days, the sun started poking out for a few hours every few days. It was just enough to allow us to get our mojo back. Don’t be fooled by the sunny photos – it still rained 90% of our time on the North Island. I just didn’t dare take out my phone in downpour to record it….
While on the Coromandel, we hiked to Cathedral Cove. Despite the sunny photos below, we were caught in big storm on the hike back. We were warned to leave the Coromandel once the roads opened, as it’s often evacuated and the forecast was showing no signs of letting up. New Zealand – all four seasons in one day.
We wound up stranded, once again, at a campground near Lake Taupo when vicious storms forced us off the road for days. We had to scrap a number of our plans (including the Weta Studios, Wellington, Napier…), but we still found enough to do that New Zealand remains one of the kids’ top spots of the trip. We visited the Waitomo Glow-worm Caves (dazzling and kinda creepy and very touristy), spent an evening at a traditional Maori hangi dinner and saw a haka, the intimidating battle cry.
I can say one thing for the Kiwis….they love their campgrounds. Great locations, clean amenities, thermal pools…just fabulous. The Lake Taupo site won hands-down. It was the perfect place to be stranded for 4 days – close to some great hikes, stunning Huka Falls and, best off all, an enormous lagoon-sized thermal pool with swim-up bar and movie-theatre sized screen that played movies from 5pm onwards. The water was really warm, so even during the fiercest rain, we were fine. I think Lucy spent at least 6hrs/day in the pool-slash-drive-in-theatre watching movies and sipping orange juice.
The Tongariro Alpine Crossing was next on our list. Often described as New Zealand’s best day hike, it takes a full day to complete. Sadly, we got a late start and dodgy weather, so we could only hike a portion of the trail, but it was beautiful and I’d love to do the whole thing one day.
For our last two days on the North Island, we hit the jackpot. Sunny weather and a beautiful little black volcanic beach just west of Auckland – Piha Beach. I loved it. A lot like Tofino, with a hippy/yuppy mix, good coffee and long walks. It was so nice to end our time on the North Island in a feel-good spot.
And as an added karmic gift, when we returned the worse-for-wear Mr. Baggins to the Britz compound, they simply shrugged off the damage good-naturedly and told us, “no worries – you really got the worst of the Kiwi weather. It’s no wonder you had a scrape or two. Please come back”. Wow. Not wanting to push our luck, we jumped into their shuttle bus and headed to the airport, bound for the airport and our flight to Christchurch on the South Island. (Motor)homeless (and dry) at last.
