Travelog for: Knopf

I just landed in Auckland after 30+ hours of travelling and am checking out the city before collapsing in my hostel bed. I am glad I pre-booked, many people seem to have trouble finding a place to sleep.

I started my backpacking journey through New Zealand (don't worry, my host gets to carry both backpacks, I am not insane) on a rainy day. Advantage of a rainy day in NZ? Rainbows!!

First stop was at a waterfall to take a walk and stretch my legs after a bus trip.

I arrived in Paihia at the Bay of Islands which is all the way in the north of the North Island of New Zealand. There are many islands and rocks in this area so I have to explore by boat!


This is the "Hole in the Rock". In good weather the boats can go all the way through but it is a bit windy and choppy and it a tight fit with a boat through at anyway, so the captain decided not to go all the way through.



Some of the islands and little beaches that can only be reached by boat look fantastic. Unfortunately the weather is still a bit cold for real beach days.





Bottlenose dolphins! Quite a large pod played around the boat for a while.

I took a walk around one of the little islands. It had a few grazing sheep and the most wonderful views:



There are of course lots of lighthouses.

On my day trip up to Cape Reinga I passed through (fruit) farming country and the Kauri forest which is the original vegetation of New Zealand that was largely burned or cut down first by the Maori settlers, then by European settlers.




Cape Reinga is the very north western point of the North Island where the Pacific Ocean meets the Tasman Sea. It is also important in Maori culture as the jumping point for the souls of the deceased, Te Rerenga Wairua, the souls want to return to the land of their ancestors (Hawaiiki) after a year long journey to begin the after life. Visitors are asked nto to eat or drink in this place because the souls are hungry.

On the western point of Cape Reinga starts 90 mile beach, a long beach that stretches until Kaitaia, but isn't actually 90 miles long but only 55 miles. The reason for the name that I heard was that there was a farmer who let his cows walk this stretch and they usually walked 30 miles per day and needed 3 days for this treck, so it had to be 90 miles long in his mind. However, as I can tell you, walking in sand takes more effort than walking on grass. It's open to cars nowadays and you are allowed to drive 100km/h.

Any way, what does one do in the sand? Sandboarding!

After getting a bus back to Auckland for one night and another one the next day to the Coromandel peninsula and rented a bed near Hot Water Beach, where thermal hot springs come out right at the beach in the sand, so that it low tide one can dig a hole that will automatically fill with hot water.
Another tourist attraction is Cathedral Cove that one can walk to along a cliff top walk.


There are other small coves the way also leads to that are much less visited.

The name Karanga-hake is from alarm signals that warned the Maori here of approaching enemies that were sounded by look-outs along the gorge,  it means something like 'sound from the other side'.

Karangahake Gorge was formed by the Ohinemuri River and used to be gold mining country between 1870 and 1950. Here are teh remains of one of the mines:

“In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit.”

Guess where I am in this picture!

Yes, in Hobbiton, yes, it's fake, it's not even quite the version of the LotR movies because after the filming of those movies, this area of a sheep farm was returned to it's natural state, but still, tourists came, wanting to see the area and when Hobbiton was rebuilt for the Hobbit movies, it was made to last so there'd be something to actually look at (and make money with). Yes, there are lots of tourists being led on an exactly timed guided tour of the grounds, yes, it is ridiculously expensive, no, one can not actually look inside Bag End, rumor has it that Peter Jackson had it deconstructed and plan to retire in it wherever it may have been re-constructed, but despite all this, I had a truly magical day at Hobbiton and it all felt very, very real. Part of that is probably due to Peter Jackson being quite obssessive about the smallest detail, so he had trees planted and Hobbit holes built that are just seen for a tenth of a second in the movies but had to be perfect anyway and these details are what makes the place so magical to me.



There are actually different sizes of Hobbit holes, so was to make the actors standing in front of them seem large like humans or small like Hobbits and dwarves.







Supposedly, these big trees are partially what made this land the first choice for the movie set.

In the evening I took part in a cultural experience at tamaki Maori Village, which is where people are brought as tribes in busses and the chief (has to be an adult male) greets the village chief after a peace ofeering that is given after a scary threatening performance to see if the visiting tribes come in peace.

The villagers then showed the visitors different Maori customs like agility training or a haka, followed by a hangi dinner with food cooked underground in a buried fire pit.

Next stop: Rotorua, a town on top of a super volcano which you can see and smell, esp around the lake or the park where hot springs and areas of bubbling mud can be found.





I also had a great walk through the red woods around here.

Here in New ZEaland one can find lots of rivers with this amazing turquoise colored water, and Huka Falls in the sunlight are amazing. The fall is only 11m deep but the real attraction is that the wide river has to go through this narrow canyon to get there and thus builds up amazing power.

I spent a long weekend at Lake Taupo which is basically a huge crater lake, bigger than Singapore or Chicago. Apparently the water has actually warmed up slightly in the last years hinting at some hidden volcanic activity below the lake. In the background covered in clouds are some of the big volcanoes in the Tongariro National Park including Mt Ruapehu, better known as Mt Doom from LotR. Unfortunately the crossing wasn'T possible when I wanted to go because of the weather.

From Lake Taupo on I drove further into Tongariro National Park (or Mordor)



incl. the visitor centre with more geological and cultural information:


and then into the rural centre of the North Island to an adventure lodge featuring adventurous river crossings, hill climbs, waterfalls, white water rafting and horse riding:




What a great, remote place!

On my free day in the capital I decided to visit the zoo, because they offer up close and personal meetings with animals in their enclosures.
Here's the Twilight house that I had all to myself for quite some time so that I could actually verify what I have been told: that you'll hear a Kiwi before you see it. They aren't the most gracefull walkers plus their long beaks dig through the leaves in the ground and there are kind of snuffling noises.






The New Zealand version of a petting zoo seems to be Australian animals:


I also visited the Te Papa national museum which was interesting concerning the younger history esp., unfortunately the indigenous history exhibit wasn't as big or as informative as I had hoped but the part on immigration was nicely done.

This is me boarding the Interislander Ferry from Wellington over the Cook Strait, through Queen Charlotte Sound to Picton.

Seemingly half the journey was through Queen Charlotte Sound, which is actually a fjord. Looking back to the fjord entrance and the North Island:



Welcome to the South Island!

This beautiful beach is in Kaiteriteri, close to the Abel Tasman National Park. Unfortunately it's still a bit too cold for swimming.