Maureen's Travel Blog

Leigh is attending a Conference in Rotorua today and kindly left me with her car so that I could explore the area during the day.

My first impression of Rotorua was smelly! It is another concentrated area of geothermal activity. Apart from the constant odour, however, it looked a very nice little town, a bit bigger than Taupo.

Having mastered the art of depressing the footbrake before putting it into gear, I was flying past the logger bfts on my way to Wai-o-Tapu Thermal Wonderland about 20 minutes drive from Rotorua. I’d never driven an automatic before but after the initial hiccup all was well and I soon felt confident driving a strange vehicle in a strange country.

I planned to arrive in time to see the Lady Knox Geyser which performed its thing at the same time each day 10.15am. I was a little late for the start but it was still spouting well when I got there.

I bought a ticket to take me round three designated walks, short, medium and long which covered all the various types of puffing crevices, mud pools, coloured lakes, caves, wooded wonderlands, waterfalls and vistas. The sun had come out and it was pleasantly warm so I decided to take my time so as to be sure not to miss anything on the map I was given.

It was actually a very interesting and varied day with some added birdlife as well as some awesome vistas. Sculptured out of volcanic activity and thousands of years in the making, Wai-O-Tapu is considered to be New Zealand’s most colourful and diverse geothermal sightseeing attraction. You are introduced to a uniquely different natural landscape – the key to what you see lies below the surface – one of the most extensive geothermal systems in New Zealand.

Bubble bubble toil and trouble, this mudpool was like boiling porridge and every so often one of the bubbling spots would leap high into the air.

This is known as the Artists’ Pallet, a very good description as there were pools of colour caused by the minerals which move about in the wind.

Now for a bit of history and geology. Maori legend tells how Maui used the jawbone of his ancestor baited with blood from is nose as a fish hook to pull up the north island. New Zealand did literally rise from the sea millions of years ago when it was part of the landmass of the southern hemisphere known as Gondwana.

The earth’s crust is made up of a patchwork of interlocking slabs (plates) which move independently like enormous ice flows. Today NZ straddles the boundary between the Indian, Australian and Pacific plates. Tremendous natural energy is released which results in spectacular geological occurrences including mountain building, earthquakes and volcanic activity. In the last 150 years, earthquakes in Wellington (1855), Murchinson (1929) and Napier (1931) have resulted in marked land changes confiring NZ as “The Shaky Isles”

This pool was actually a very much brighter veridian green than I could capture on camera.

There was an area of forest which looked just like a wonderland with its unusual colours caused by trees, grasses and ferns being coated in the various minerals. It was quite magical.

The view across the coloured swirling pools and waterfalls to the volcano in the distance was the climax of the walk.

This is the best photo I could get of this Pied Stilt before my camera finally stopped working completely. I had hoped to get a much closer sharper shot. There were also some pretty little Fantails dartling about amongst the trees and I took a Flip movie of these which I can’t seem to put on here because it’s too big.

It was about a half hour walk back from this point to the entrance and by this time I was parched and a bit hungry so decided to have a spot of lunch before returning to Rotorua. I returned a little early and Leigh was later finishing her conference so I spent some time by the lake watching the seabirds. This was another thermal area where you had to avoid hotspots.

The forecast was not good for today so we decided to follow the blue sky east of the mountain and just see what the weather did when we returned down the west side. This proved to be a good plan because it remained dry and fairly bright for most of the day but frigging cold up high on the desert road!

We first skirted the east side of Taupo Lake which is the largest lake in New Zealand with a surface area of 238 square miles. It is world famous for trout fishing, hot pools and beautiful landscape and I am lucky enough to be staying right here, thank you Leigh!

Then as we ascended to the mountainous region along the Desert Road, the vegetation changed dramatically to black sand and tussocks, waving grasses, interspersed with heather.

It got more and more barren as we got nearer to the dramatic mountains.

Wild horses roam up here but but I didn’t see one. There are not so many now as they were becoming a pest to the vegetation. They are not native to New Zealand.

Several of the mountains were still ice-capped and looked stunning against the blue sky. One of these was Ruapehu.

We came down the other side into farmland again and headed to a New Zealand Army Base where Fran worked. Fran is Leigh’s younger daughter and she showed us around her workplace then we chatted over a coffee in the “Hot Shot” cafe.

We also called in at Annie’s farm and met her lovely daughters and son. Leigh had taught three of the daughters at her school and one of them was still in her class.

While we were there, Michael one of the farmhands came up the driveway and was immediately attacked by Magpie from a nearby tree! It would seem this bird has a grudge against Michael and does this every time he comes near. Michael had previously picked up an almost dead baby bird from the driveway and the bird obviously thinks he killed it and is therefore a constant threat. I tried to photograph this attack.

Ohakune was the next little town we arrived at, a ski resort and popular with backpackers but also the place where Leigh works as a teacher in Ruapehu School. What a great place to work – at the foot of a mountain! I had heard so much about Ohakune from Leigh so it felt strangely familiar.

We stopped briefly at the school where I saw photos of Leigh’s students on the wall. I also have to share this newspaper cutting with you – a record sized fish that LEIGH caught!! She wasn’t fibbing after all, although she admitted to having some help from the rather nice young man in the pic who held on to her waist to prevent her going overboard 🙂 (I wonder which gave her the most thrill!!)

I saw where Leigh spent her childhood, the fuel station which her Dad owned and the house where she lived. There were many changes and I could feel the nostalgia in Leigh’s voice as she recalled how it was back then.

As we travelled back on the other side of the mountain which was more fertile, we stopped at the bridge where there was a Memorial to the dead after the dreadful train disaster of 1953. I tried to imagine the horror of that Christmas Eve as I stood beside the bridge looking downstream. The lake in the crater of the mountain above burst open sending a deluge of water down the mountain just as the passenger train was passing over the bridge and sent the bridge and the train with its contents hurtling down the river. 157 men, women and children lost their lives.

Not far from here we also saw the spot where 7 outward bound youngsters lost their lives in the flash floods last year.

Further vegetation and superb scenery on the way back included Mangawhera Falls. There were some very good examples of the Mountain Cabbage Tree here, a native palm of New Zealand.

Further on we passed under the impressive Makatote Viaduct,
an important physical reminder of the substantial resources and expertise that were invested in the construction of the North Island Main Trunk (NIMT) railway, and is an iconic monument of the ‘final push’ to complete it.

Watch out for Kiwis on the way home, we don’t want to hit one of those on the road!

Margueritas tonight!! 🙂

Tamarillos for breakfast! I would like to paint these, they remind me of pomegranates.

We journeyed back to Taupo down the east side of the Coromandel peninsula, stopping at some beautiful coastal resorts along the way. Kuaotunu is a very pretty area with a river flowing under a little bridge into the sea.

The sandy beach held a treasure of shells of all shapes and colours, and here again were the wonderful New Zealand blues of sky and water – a backpackers’ paradise.

Whitianga was a beautiful long beach, more commercialised than Kuatunu, with huge palm trees fringing the roadside.

There was a busy quayside populated by fishing enthusiasts both young and old. Just across the road from here we had flat whites with lemon slice in the warm spring sunshine before pressing on.

The scenery has to be experienced; it is just impossible to capture the essence on camera. There is so much diversity of vegetatation, change of terrain and contrast of colour over the brow of every hill and around every bend.

We past through Tairua Harbour. Here some very exclusive looking properties had been built tastefully around purpose built canals which led into the sea, so that the affluent owners could moor up their posh yachts and other sea-going craft right outside their houses….. how the other half live!

The road then took us along an expanse of mud flats, where flounder could be found, before leaving the east coast and crossing back over the peninsular range towards Thames and back to farming country again.

We called briefly on some South African friends of Leigh’s and Dan’s in Thames who had moved here from Taupo. They had bought a pretty light blue and white house beside a stream.

Then on to Paeroa where we photographed the L&P bottle. There seem to be quite a few iconic town statues similar to this one in New Zealand, rather like the giant fruits in Australia.

We finally got back on to the usual route to Taupo. The dark coppery coloured hedgerows of Photinia were eye-catching as we passed by the lush fields of Jersey cows.

The sheep also seemed more numerous than on our drive up, with many new snow-white lambs skipping on the hllside.

A New Zealand falcon lifting some carrion from the road caught my eye. A spectacular bird but we passed to quickly for a photo. However one bird that we got quite a few opportuities to photo is this New Zealand Kingfisher. He is invariably perched alone on an electricity wire somewhere near the road.

A last walk on the beach before leaving this lovely hideaway somewhere in the north of the Coromandel peninsular.

A pair of Dotterels delighted us pecking in the damp sand as the tide receded.

Today we are leaving Little Bay for Amodeo Bay (named after the captain of a ship which ran aground here). Leigh has booked us in to Anglers’ Lodge where we planned to do some deep sea fishing and Mary joined us for the day. Leigh and Dan have stayed at this place before. They love their fishing. Dan even has a boat of his own back in Taupo.

Amodeo Bay was about half an hour round the mountain range and down by the coast from Little Bay. We arrived in time to go out fishing for about 3 hours in the afternoon but just had to check that the weather would be ok out at sea.

All was well and before long we were bumping along on the rough seas. We were on a chartered fishing boat just for the four of us. The plan was to look for gannets diving. These highlight the areas where the bait is. The bait is fish such as pilchards which swim near the surface, and the bigger fish which we are after, i.e. snappers, are below these near the bottom of the sea, about 30 metres.

We eventually anchored the boat near one of these gannet-bombing areas and dropped our lines into the heavy swell. No sooner had my weight hit the bottom of the ocean than I felt a tug and hauled up an unusual spiney pink fish with big eyes and a wide mouth. I was the first to catch a Snapper! …well two actually!!

This was so exciting and another big first for me on my adventure. This was a good spot as we all continued to catch many fish here for a while until the skipper decided the shoal must have moved away according to the fish-detecting instrument on board.

We spent an exhilerating day following the trail of the dive-bombing gannet and filled a bin with fish of varying sizes. Leigh caught the biggest which was about 9lbs, Dan thought. At a high point Richard, our skipper, had to help us all unhook our fish at the same time. He was as excited as we were.

Apart from the huge yellow faced gannets, I spied a few other seabirds including the very ugly Petrel. “It looks like he fell out of the wrong side of the nest”, Richard commented as he circled the bird so I could photograph it bobbing up and down on the waves. Photographs were not easy on the high seas trying to keep your balance with a rod in your hand!

We finally returned with our huge catch and Dan had the unenviable task of gutting and cleaning our haul. He did get some willing helpers in the end. In the meantime, Richard cleaned up the equipment for the next fishing trip while the eels came up searching for the spoils.

By this time, wouldn’t you know it, the sun had gone down over the yardarm. I can get used to this life very easily!

We toasted our success and settled down to a delicious supper of fried Snapper and risotto… so much better when you’ve caught it yourself a few hours earlier.

We finished our meal just in time for the Rugby Wales-France semi-final, but I was just too tired to keep my eyes open and slept for nearly ten hours… another first!!

Thank you Leigh and Dan for a most memorable day!!

A beautiful sunny morning and the sea glistened in the sunlight!

Leigh and I decided to take a Tiki Tour of the area today and explore some of the narrow windy roads to little bays around the peninsula. I am in constant awe of the different blues of water and sky, a blend of cerulean, azure and aquamarine, sometimes pale and sometimes deep in colour – I can never quite capture it on camera but will try and experiment with paints later.

This was just the right time of the year to be in New Zealand to see the new growth everywhere. The new coppery red growth of the Photinea and the fresh lime green leaves of the oaks and the new pink structural leaf growth of the Toons. I love the unfurling on the tops of the tree ferns. Blossom is becoming more and more prolific as the days go by. The bottlebrush, Arum Lilies, Cinanaria, Toitoi, Rhododendron and Paulownia which keep the honey bees busy in many areas. I’m sure there are many I’ve missed here but all in all the diversity of colour is awesome.

We found a cafe hidden away in a sort of retreat. It appeared to be run by hippies and was certainly alternative. I chose a drink which was obviously a detox called “Liver Lover”. This was a smoothie made up from the juices of carrot, beetroot, celery and lemon. Hmm interesting taste but I kept reminding myself how good it was for my insides. Leigh stuck to a regular coffee and I wished I’d done the same. We also ate our way through a plateful of bagels with advocados, cream cheese and pine nut dips. All good.

The surrounding gardens were quietly secluded, and felt so relaxing after our morning’s drive. As we sat up on the decking surveying the scene a Tui was busily extracting nectar from nearby Kowhoi blossom. There were unusual works of art dotted about the garden among fruit trees such as banana and grapefruit.

We arrived back in time for me to experiment with the late afternoon light over the bay in watercolour, so with glass of Pinot Gris in one hand and paintbrush in the other, here is the unfinished result….

I woke to hear the faint tinkle of the Tui outside the window against the incessant sound of the waves. A watery sun was trying its best to shine but it was a comfortable 20 deg so I decided to take the opportunity for an early morning dip.

The water was cool but the surf was inviting and I was soon being thrown around by the powerful waves – a refreshing start to the day then back for breakfast, fruit, muesli with mango yoghurt, an apple Danish and fresh coffee. This is the life!

Today we would just relax after our long journey the previous day and enjoy this wonderful spot on the north east coast of New Zealand.

We walked along the beach, enjoyed good food, wine and company, and even played some real scrabble!

It was raining as we left Taupo. This is good, better to do our traveling in the rain so long as the sun shines when we get there, although BFTs are not nice in the rain.

We followed the same route back through Tirau corrugated town again but turned off east towards Coramandal soon after.

It continued to rain on and off for the first half of our journey although it became warmer as we moved north. Of course, we always expect the opposite in the UK!

En route we stopped so that I could photograph the very structural Chinese pink leafed deciduous Toon trees.

I commented on the single railway track. “Don’t your trains come back?” I asked Leigh. She seemed to find this a bit too funny. They have passing places for trains, which makes a lot of sense and certainly saves on track but then they don’t have so many trains. I didn’t see one!

We stopped for fuel at Matamata. Fuel is just over $2 a litre….. cheap or what!

We are now on the flat plains of Hauraki. This is rich, lush pasture, very similar to Cambridge. Here there are many horses, Jersey cows and rich farmers. I have to say that so far I have seen more cows than sheep and certainly more sheep than people. Hauraki is a milk production area and Waitoa has a large milk processing plant where most of the local milk products are processed for export.

A Pukeko, a marsh bird like a swamphen (bigger than our moorhen) hightailed off into the undergrowth when I jumped out of the car to photograph him. There will be others………

The temperature rose steadily from 13 degrees in Taupo up to 21 as we hit the mountain range of Kaiai on the Corrie peninsula. The mountain of Te Aroho means love.

We stopped for a flat coffee and an Anzac which is like a flapjack but there was to be a history behind the Anzac which Leigh would divulge later after the sun went down over the yardarm.

We found ourseves alongside the Kopu (Cowpoo) River, the only river in New Zealand that Captain Cook sailed up part way and then returned to the sea. I wonder why. I must do a bit more research on this as the town of Thames is a bit further up and he surely must have had somethng to do with the naming of it.

From here on in we followed the coast to the left of the peninsula below the range to our right and passed through some very pretty towns. These were full of hippies in the 60s and many of this species remain today. We also passed some older colonial style houses.

We stopped at Thames for major food shop as we would be far from any civilisation I was told and my goodness, you’d have thought we were gonna be holed up for a month!

Eventually, the populated areas gave way to a winding road dotted with Pohutukawa.

These are New Zealand’s Christmas tree and are a mass of red bottlebrush-style red flower in December. They were just in bud now with a rich dark green leaf.

The high rocky cliff walls to our right, with bright terracotta areas produced flame colours of bright oranges and blues from the carpets of Nastersiums and Cineraria. There were even clumps of Arum Lilies growing wild. I only ever see these in flower shops at home.

The seascape became more and more picturesque as we rounded each bend and now we were beginning to see the Oyster beds for which the area is famous.

A lone Dotteril was picking away along the mud flats.

The next stop off was at the Coromandel Smoking Company, a regular place for Leigh and Dan, where we bought a selection of smoked mussels, sweet chilli, garlic and a mixed selection.

The road to our remote retreat continued with much winding over the mountain range and the most beautiful scenery ever. Just such a shame the skies were grey so everything looked somewhat monochrome. Occasionally you could catch glimpses of awesome vistas between the trees at the side of the road where the ground fell away to mile upon mile of undulating hills and mountains finally giving way to the ocean. However, the sea in the distance was just grey mist. I will photograph some of these beautiful scenes on a better day.

Eventually we arrived at Mary’s bach house, which was built right on the beach in a remote part of the Coromandel peninsula. There were large windows looking out to the ocean and glass doors out to decking and a balcony. Just perfect and the temperatures here were a good 8 degrees higher than Taupo although some sunshine would have made such a difference.

So, first things first! We crack open a bottle and out comes the plate of smoked mussels and Mary, Leigh, Dan and I relax and enjoy our first evening at Little Bay, Coromandel with the ocean crashing on the beach below and hope for sunny skies tomorrow.

Leigh brought me a nice cuppa in bed. “I’m not going to make a habit of this!” she said… the old buzzard! 🙂

After breakfast Leigh, Dan and I took Sally (their 9-month old labrador) down a gully, a pathway at the side of their house, which led all the way down to the lake. The forecast for the day was not very promising so we thought it best to take a walk before the rain. We walked along the beach while throwing a ball far into the water for the never tiring Sally. It was very pleasant walking along watching the ducks and a number of black swans enjoying the warm springs emanating from the ground in different areas of the beach. (picture of Sally to follow soon)

The rest of the day was spent just relaxing and catching up with emails, scrabble and blog (as you do).

To warm us up on a grey day, in the evening Leigh poured us each a hefty glass of Drambuie… and a second to accompany our delicious meal of chicken stirfry and salad. I just go with the flow…… 🙂

Today is a much brighter day, although the forecast had said otherwise, so we took the opportunity for a “ticky tour”.

An old friend of Leigh’s, Fiona, joined us with her ten year old son, Scott, as we headed up to the platform where they do Bungy Jumping high over a gorge in Taupo.

Have no fear, I have absolutely no wish to take part in this rediculous act of foolhardiness!!! Comfort zone or no comfort zone! However I was happy to watch these idiots as they flung themselves out into the ether, leaving their insides behind on the platform 60 feet or so above.

We then headed up to the “Craters of the Moon”. This was a concentrated area of geothermic craters where you could spend an hour or so viewing the puffs of steam coming out of holes of varying sizes.

Some of these craters have the most beautiful colouring caused by the layering of different minerals. Some of the larger craters had hot bubbling cauldrons in them.

Finally we checked out the aerodrome where the parachute jumps take place… hmmm we’ll see!

On the way back we drove in round the Botanical Gardens where the Rhododendrons were at their best.

This Tui is a nectar feeding bird and loves the yellow Kowhoi blossom. I have painted this for my 2012 calendar and it’s good to see it in real life in Kay’s garden.

Breakfast at 8.30am. Then Chris took me to St Andrew’s which was a delightful white wooden church typical of the style in each small town in this part of New Zealand at least and very similar to ones I’d seen in New England. It had a plaque bearing the year in which it was built – 1881.

I eventually found Mark taking choir practice in the church room and waited patiently but as time went on it became clear that there was to be no ringing. I eventually met up with Mark who said that there was some problem with the bells but he would happily show them to me after the service. I still believed at this point that the bells were only hung for chiming although Kay was convinced they were rung properly every Sunday.

The service was a slightly different arrangement from what I was used to and it was also in Maori in the service book. The Sermon was about not worrying but finding your dream and included the recent losses of Apple founder Steve Jobs and Kiwi Rugby Team member, Michael Denton. It was a friendly service and I found the parishioners most welcoming. Mark was an outstanding organist!

As promised, after everyone applauded his organ voluntary, he took me up into the little wooden tower which houses the bells. I saw immediately not only 2 half wheels leaning against the wall but that all the ropes were cut off below the sallies, which confirmed that they would only be chimed. There was no evidence of change ringing nor peal boards on the wall. On further inspection up top, I noticed that all the bells were hung on full wheels, which left me a little confused. I was surprised that Mark seemed to know little about the bells and I discovered later that they had indeed been hung for ringing originally but, after being recast as a heavier 6, the weight and movement caused damage to the church and this is why they are now only chimed. Hence being listed as unringable in Dove’s Guide.

After saying goodbye to Kay who was working at the Gift Shop today, Chris drove me back via Gavin Smith’s Gallery.

Gavin is a watercolour landscape artist and it was lovely to meet him and is wife. Coincidentally they had spent a couple of years working in the Cotswolds near Chastleton House, at Cornwell Glebe, which is not far from my home in Charlbury. So we were able to chat about shared knowledge of the area as well as our love of watercolours.

At midday Leigh and Dan came to collect me to take me down to their home in Taupo.

We stopped at a little town called Terau which was famous for it’s corrugated tin creations.

Then there were interesting pine Wood carvings at Tokoroa…..

After this the countryside became increasingly rugged with tall pines on either side and mountains in the distance.

We stopped for a sandwich beside some particularly tall pines and Leigh commented on the profusion of gorse which she believed had been brought over from England. The ground here was poor compared to the Cambridge area, being mainly pumice from Volcanic activity and gorse thrived well on it.

Just north of Taupo we stopped off at Larva Glass, a showroom of beautiful blown glass items many depicting colours and textures of the region.

I had seen ‘smoke’ billowing from behind some trees further down the road and could be forgiven for thinking it was a bush fire, a regular occurrance in Queensland but certainly not NZ. No, this was actually coming out of the ground. It was a geyser, hot steam coming from deep below the earth’s crust and was to be a common sight in this area of volcanic activity.

We drove through an area, Wairakei, where steam is brought up from the earth and channelled through huge aluminium pipes to generate electricity. I had never seen anything like this before in all my travels.

We drove through prawn nursery beds, large rectangular water beds containing warm spa water where prawns were bred. Our next stop was Huka Falls, an area of outstanding beauty. This was a narrow pass where a huge amount of water crashed down from the mountains into Lake Taupo. The colour of the water amid the surf was a deep deep turquoise green, just beautiful.

We watched as a small speedboat containing some tourists turned perilously near the terrifying volume of rushing water far below…. quite an adrenalin rush I would think!

At last we arrived at Taupo Lake, a huge expanse of water like a sea with snow-capped mountains in the distance. We walked a little along a jetty where many pleasure boats were tied up, promising ourselves a day trip out on one of them one day.