I arrived in Picton and drove along the coast to Nelson, a city known for its art. I arrived on Sunday, so everything was closed and I spent the afternoon reading in a hammock which of course made me very happy. I went walking in the downtown area on Monday. I enjoyed checking out some art and I also bought some necessities in the shops there. I had a lovely back-in-time experience shopping for shoes. The salesperson actually helped me try them on! From Nelson I drove out to Elaine Bay, which didn’t have the beautiful views I was expecting so it felt a bit like a waste of time, then headed to Blenheim. My hostel there was horrible – very dirty and unkempt. The next day I hired a bike and went wine tasting. Very fun! I managed to switch my accomodation so I didn’t have to stay in the gross hostel again. 

My next stop was down the coast at Kaikoura. On the way I stopped at Ohau Point to see New Zealand Fur Seals! There were lots of pups and they were so cute! In Kaikoura, I went whale watching and we saw some dusky dolphins but no whales. The boat ride was pretty rough — I may have made a vow to myself never to get on a small boat ever again. I stayed the night in Christchurch in an old jail. The rooms were the old cells! 

From Christchurch I headed into the mountains. I stopped at Castle Hill, an area with loads of limestone boulders coming up out of the earth. They were really interesting landforms to hike through. This area was used for the filming of the battle scene at the end of The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe movie. I also stopped at Cave Stream, where a river runs underground through a limestone cave. My intention was to hike through the cave (in the river) but when I got there I had some second thoughts involving hypothermia and frostbite so I decided to skip it. It is only spring here and the river was VERY cold! I drove up to Arthur’s Pass, high up in the mountains and stayed the night there. In the morning I did a bit of hiking, after waiting for it to warm up — it was so cold there at night!

I stayed four nights in Wellington in a huge six-story YHA hostel. It was supposed to be three nights, but by the end of the day before I was supposed to leave, I hadn’t actually planned out where I was going next, so I added on a day to do some logistics. My first day in Wellington was beautiful. I took the cable car up the hill to the botanical gardens, which were quite lovely, and wandered down Cuba Street which is full of fun shops and cafes. On the second day I went to the Te Papa museum. I saw some exhibits about the Maori, some art by New Zealand artists, an exhibit about how New Zealand has changed in the last century, and a section about New Zealand biodiversity (it reminded me of the Museum of Natural History’s Hall of Biodiversity — my favorite). The third day was all rain, but I didn’t mind because I spent most of my time in the hostel using the wifi anyway 🙂 It felt great to have some long phone conversations and get some planning done. This morning I took the Interislander ferry to Picton on the South Island. 

Rotorua was my next stop. It is situated in a geothermically active region so there are lots of interesting things to visit in the area. Also, tons of hot springs! I spent a day hanging out with a lovely Belgian woman I met in my hostel. We had a lively political discussion on the porch of the hostel, then we visited a mud pool (boiling mud!) and Kerosene Creek hot spring. Waiotapu Thermal Wonderland was the highlight of my time in the area. I loved seeing all the different thermal features. I also visited Craters of the Moon, which is an area where steam from underground vents up through the earth. It wasn’t as exciting as Waiotapu. 

I stayed overnight in Taupo, then headed on to Napier. Napier was leveled by an earthquake in 1931. They rebuilt the city in less than two years, and almost all the buildings were built in the Art Deco style. In the 80s, they realized the value of their beautiful architecture and now they have protected the buildings and worked to preserve the style of the city. I took a lovely walking tour with a sweet older lady as a guide. It was really interesting to see the different design elements in the buildings. I also had the best meal of my trip so far while I was in Napier, a spring risotto at a restaurant called Mr. D. Yum. Napier is in the Hawke’s Bay, which is know for its wineries. So I stopped at Elephant Bay winery for a tasting on my way down to Wellington. 

My first stop after leaving Auckland was the Waipu caves. It was muddy and very wet in there! It was cool to explore the cave, but the best part was the glow worms! You just turn off your light and look up and there are hundreds of little points of light glowing on the top of the cave.  

I stayed one night in Whangarei (in Maori the WH makes an F sound) at a slightly dingy hostel, then headed out to the Bay of Islands. I drove a crazy curvy road all along the coast to get there — such a beautiful drive but a bit scary given that it was only my second day of driving on the left side of the road. I did ok 🙂 My guidebook recommended a stop at Elliot Bay and WOW. Such a lovely beach, and I was the only one there. 

My accommodation for the night was in a tiny town called Russell. When I arrived at my hostel, it turned out I was the only guest and I ended up chatting with the owner for most of the evening. He was an 83 year old Kiwi man named Ron, and he told me amazing stories about New Zealand’s history! Did you know that American soldiers were in New Zealand during WWII? Ron remembered the relief everyone felt when they arrived — “we didn’t have to be scared anymore.” I did a bit of exploring around Russell (not much to do in a town of 816 people) and then headed to the Aroha Island Kiwi Preserve where I was hoping to see a kiwi!

Kiwi are flightless birds that are native to New Zealand. They are mostly nocturnal and they have nostrils at the end of their long beaks. They poke their beaks into the ground to find insects, and they also eat fruit. The kiwi preserve turned out to be a bit different from what I was expecting. It was more of a protected area than a kiwi preserve. The kiwi could come and go freely from there, and there were only two kiwi living there when I arrived. I braved the cold and a big thunderstorm to sit outside in the dark for three hours watching for kiwi. In the end, I heard one quite close to me, but I didn’t get to see it. A kiwi’s call sounds really cool – you can hear it here. You have to imagine hearing it in the middle of a forest, in the dark, during a thunderstorm 😀

Rainbow Falls was on my way to my next stop, so I made a stop there. Beautiful! The sun even came out for a few minutes and I got to see the rainbow! I spent most of the day in the virgin Waipoua Forest. This forest has lots of native Kauri trees. Kauri trees can be HUGE. They can grow to be over 50 meters tall and their trunks can have girths of 16 meters. When people first arrived in New Zealand, it had many Kauri forests like this one, but most of the giant trees were cut down for timber. I hiked to the Four Sisters, Te Mauta Ngahere, Yakas, and Tane Mahuta, all Kauri trees. Tane Mahuta is the largest Kauri tree and more than 1250 years old. I was really impressed with the protections the Department of Conservation had in place to protect the trees. The trails around the trees are elevated boardwalks designed to protect the sensitive roots, and when you enter the forest, you have to clean your shoes to protect against Kauri dieback disease.

I spent one night in Omapere, then headed back to Auckland. I stopped at the expensive but cool Kauri museum on my way. I really liked the displays of Kauri gum, which is a resin like amber. It can be collected from the ground and also by tapping the trees to get them to release it. There was a whole industry in Kauri gum. 

I really liked traveling in the Northland. It was beautiful and peaceful, and the Kiwis there were so friendly (the people, not the birds!)

I spent a few days in an Air Bnb in Ponsonby, which is a hip neighborhood in Auckland. I did a lot of shopping for things I realized I needed after leaving home. I got a new backpack because the one I brought was a bit over-full (read: jam packed!) and I was having a really hard time getting it to zip, which was driving me crazy. I did a long walking tour of the city center. I learned that New Zealand was the first country to give women the right to vote in 1893. I also took a ferry boat over to a small town just across the water from Auckland. Mostly though I spent a lot of time using wifi in cafes and bars planning logistics and making reservations. I also spent some time studying the New Zealand road rules in preparation for renting a car. Driving on the other side of the road — yikes! I wasn’t terribly taken with Auckland, to be honest. But I got some useful things done while I was there anyway.

Two of the kind staff members at the resort took me for short hikes to viewpoints on the island to watch the sunrise and the sunset. Neither was spectacular but they were still pretty. No manta rays showed up, so I headed down to another island, Wailailai, to another resort where I was able to swim with sharks!! They were white tip reef sharks, so don’t worry they don’t eat people 🙂 I had a sort of a mixed mind about doing the swim with sharks because they feed the sharks to get them to come around. They spear a fish and hold it under water and the sharks circle around. I feel like that’s disruptive to their natural behavior. But it was really cool to get so close to the sharks. Some of them actually brushed against me!

While I was at Wailailai Ecohaven, I took a trip to the local village. We got to visit the school, which was a lovely experience. The students performed a few rhymes and songs for us. They were doing a ceremony to initiate their brownie girl guides that afternoon, so we got to stay and watch that as well. It was very nice. It did occur to me that it could be quite disruptive to the students’ learning if they have to interrupt what they are doing to perform for guests all the time.