Honeymoon in New Zealand

It was a whirlwind tour of two large islands. We met some lovely people, ate some very good food, and saw a lot of sheep over the course of 17 days and 3,400 kilometres of driving.

We left San Francisco on a Tuesday night and after an uneventful flight arrived in Auckland at 5:30 am on a Thursday. Wednesday had vanished. We told ourselves we would stay up all day to avoid jet lag.

Our first stop in downtown Auckland was Remedy Coffee where we sat and Richard drank coffee, and had a delicious breakfast bagel for what seemed to be a staggeringly expensive $11. This was only a sign of things to come, as restaurant food is extremely pricey everywhere, by American standards anyway. However, tax is included, and there’s no tipping, so it may not be that bad in reality. It just takes some getting used to.

We walked down to the Ferry Building and sat in the sunshine and looked out at the water. We decided to ride the hop-on-hop-off tour bus to get a feel for the city and take in the major attractions. We jumped off at the museum and continued on to Mount Eden and climbed all the way to the top! What a view of the city and the harbor!

Auckland from Mt Eden

There’s an amazing volcanic crater to stare down into - apparently it’s a sacred Maori place. Naturally there were some kids running around in there with a total disregard for the rules. We heaped scorn upon them but said nothing. Starting to fall asleep, we headed back to our hotel, Rydges, checked in and had a quick four-hour power nap. Awakening refreshed we had a fantastic dinner at an Indian restaurant called iVillage, located in the restored Victoria Park Market with amazing brickwork and wood beams.

Wicket having a rest, just north of Kaikoura

Next morning we picked up “Wicket”, our Spaceship for the vacation. Spaceships are a rental van company that deals in converted Toyota minivans - they have a mattress in the back, cooking equipment, and a tiny battery-powered fridge. Each one has a different name so you can look out for them on your travels, and we did see quite a few. This was to be our home for the next two weeks.

We drove out onto the motorway to head to the Coromandel Peninsula - some trepidation about driving on the left, but no issues other than the initial terror, and then repeatedly turning on the wipers instead of the turn indicator. Steph was an able and patient navigator, and most importantly reminded us to Keep Left. It was our mantra.

The road to Coromandel quickly leaves the main highway and becomes increasingly narrower and more twisty as you drive up and around some mountains. It was a good test. We drove up and around the peninsula, stopping in Thames, Coromandel Town and Whitianga before arriving at Hot Water Beach where we stayed in the holiday park. The “Top 10” chain of holiday parks are everywhere and we stayed in several. All pretty high quality.

We were aiming to arrive by 6pm to catch the low tide - if you get there at low tide you can dig a hole which will flood with hot water from the geothermal spring underneath. We had missed low tide, unfortunately, but the receptionist mentioned that if we got up at 5:30am we could catch the next one. We dutifully hauled ourselves out of bed and walked down to the beach - it was raining and dark but not too cold. Richard dug around in the sand for quite some time, but no hot water. Somehow we’d missed it again.  It was still nice to see the sun rise, but, we were a little let down.

Bravely hiking through a light drizzle

Today was the day for one of the 'must see' attractions - Cathedral Cove. As we were up early we beat the tourist rush and had a nice 45 minute hike along the coast with spectacular views. The cove itself is named for an archway that the ocean has cut out of the rock and must be seen to be really appreciated. It was worth the hike!

Cathedral Cove

In front of Bilbo's House

Next stop was Matamata, aka Hobbiton. The locals have embraced the deluge of Tolkien fans who travel to see the Hobbit set and have transformed part of their town to take advantage. We got on the bus for our tour and looked around - nobody else? Ah, but there must be more people at the set, right? We drove through picturesque farm roads to get to the set - it was pretty clear why Peter Jackson chose this region for the set. Then our tour guide got on and yes, it was just us. Our own private tour of Middle Earth. She was a little surprised by just the two of us, when normally there would be a group of 40 or so. Hurrah for the low season! The Hobbit set was unbelievable in the amount of detail, and it’s all been kept just as it was in the movie. Each of the 40 hobbit holes had something unique and different about it; here was the baker hobbit, and here the cheese maker. Remarkable. It was very cool to see and discover new things and bits of trivia about the filming, like the oak tree that was meticulously built for the Hobbit by a special effects team in Wellington to appear “sixty years younger” than the oak tree that had appeared in the Lord of the Ring movie. Or the fence that had been aged with careful application of paint, moss and yogurt.

Boiling mud in Rotorua

We drove on to Rotorua, supposedly called by the locals “Rotovegas” for unknown reasons. It wasn’t particularly lively at this time of year, but seemed pleasant enough. Due to the natural hot springs there was a strong sulphur smell pervading the entire town.

Rotorua Museum

We spent a long time at the beautifully restored museum, which was an incredibly ornate bath house from the turn of the century until it closed for good in 1960 in a state of total disrepair. Back in the day, wealthy Europeans travelled an incredible distance to take the water cure. We marvelled at the pictures of people submerged with live electrodes in the bath! No doubt it was invigorating. Electrifying even.

From Rotorua we travelled on to Taupo, where a torrential downpour cut short our visit. Everything was closed as well as it was Anzac day, the equivalent of Remembrance Day for Australia and NZ. Anzac Day is serious down there, as nearly every town has its own quite impressive war memorial. This year being the 100th anniversary of Gallipoli, the whole country seemed to be really making an effort. Most places had white crosses lined up to signify each of their town’s residents who died in the war.

The road to Napier

We decided to press on to Napier, a fantastic drive through forests and up over mountains. We left the rain behind and were greeted by enormous rainbows. With the orderly rows of trees it was very reminiscent of some of the more remote British Columbia highways.  Steph did some quick Googling and booked us a stay at The County Hotel, which turned out to be a brilliant choice. This was a boutique hotel of 16 rooms, each bird-themed. We stayed in the Whio room, which is a sort of duck. The hotel was unbelievable - like stepping into Victorian England. There was a library with leather armchairs and free port for the guests. 

The County Hotel

The room was elegant and lovely and most importantly a welcome break from sleeping in the van!

Napier itself is beautiful, known for its impressive art deco buildings, having been largely rebuilt after a devastating earthquake in the 30s and apparently frozen in time ever since. And considering it was late fall, it was hot and sunny. We loved it, and since it was low season, we had it all to ourselves. Napier is also home to the National Aquarium - we were the only visitors in some of the exhibits. Richard was especially keen to see the Kiwi birds and we had a great show - perhaps too much of a show, as the Kiwis were in a bit of a frisky mood. Also some very nice and splashy penguins.

Defiant Goats

Next stop was Wellington, half a day’s drive from Napier. Richard's mom’s cousin Merryl lives here with her husband Ian on a gorgeous nature reserve / farm, and we stopped in for a visit. It’s about a 3km “rough drive” from the main road up to the house proper, and we managed to get poor Wicket stuck on the muddy track about halfway along. With some careful directions from Steph we got it turned around without rolling off the cliff and down into the forest below. Some tense moments there though! Deciding to leave the car where it was, we walked the rest of the way, through some gorgeous tall trees and listening to the birds call out. Richard's favourite bird was the bellbird, unique to NZ and it has a delightful and friendly song.  We enjoyed a nice tour of the farm with Merryl, a close encounter with an ornery goat that Ian wrestled with, and a delicious lunch of homemade bread, cheese, tomatoes and jams of various sorts.

We toured downtown Wellington, visiting the famous national museum known as “Te Papa”, which was spectacular inside. It’s Air New Zealand’s 75th anniversary so we spent some time learning about their history. There was a very cool virtual reality exhibit where we could put on a VR headset and experience a sort of fantastic other world while being on a plane. Needs to be seen to be believed. We then took the cable car up an incredibly steep hill to the botanical gardens which has stunning views of Wellington below. It was a lovely place and the coffee shops were excellent and numerous. Steph also had possibly the best risotto of her life here.

Steph waiting for the cable car

Next day we were up bright and early to catch the Cook Strait Ferry to the South Island. Google Maps steered us wrong and we barely made it in time. The lady at the ticket booth cheerfully warned us the sailing would be a bit bumpy! The ferry was pretty similar to a BC ferry, except they very inefficiently load and exit from the same end of the ferry, so everything seems to take forever.

Very large ocean-going roller coaster

As we set sail the captain came on to warn us repeatedly about the ocean swells. Once we got out of the harbour and into the ocean, we knew what he meant. Giant waves came crashing over the ship, even splashing our windows on the eighth deck!!  The crew came around with paper bags and cups of ice. Steph slept fitfully while Richard sat with his head on the table staring at nothing. It was not good. Eventually we got to calmer water. Amazing how many of the passengers were totally unfazed. New Zealanders are clearly a nautical bunch.

We disembarked at Picton and stopped at Picton Village Bakkerij, highly recommended by our Lonely Planet. And rightly so - they had the most unbelievable apple crumble. And certainly the best meat pie so far on the trip. (Did we mention the meat pies? New Zealanders seem to live off them, and they are unfailingly cheap and delicious.) We drove on to Blenheim, the heart of wine country, especially known for their Sauvignon Blanc. We stopped at Wither Hills and tasted a few - in moderation of course, with hours of driving left to do. Steph even found one she actually enjoyed. The winery itself was stunning and had a sort of lookout you could climb up to, where we had spectacular views of the surrounding mountains and the vineyards all bathed in dazzling sunshine.

Wither Hills

Our destination for the day was Kaikoura, a little coastal town known for its ocean wildlife. Enjoying some strong tailwinds and straight, open highway, we found ourselves being pulled over by New Zealand’s finest. This police officer was quite friendly and we ended up with only a $30 ticket, not too bad at all. Most importantly, he also insisted that we stop and see the baby seals, which we didn’t know about. This turned out to be a highlight of the trip.

Curious fur seal pup

A few miles up the road we pulled over and indeed, there is a little river where the baby fur seals can be found. They haul themselves out of the ocean and swim into the river, navigating strong currents and big rocks to splash and play. We walked up the trail beside the river and came to a beautiful waterfall, with dozens of the seal pups cavorting under the spray, having the time of their lives. We were transfixed and felt incredibly lucky to have it all to ourselves, at least for that moment. As it got dark we drove into Kaikoura proper.

The next day we went to visit the fur seal colony, where the adults just hang out on the rocks and in the parking lot itself. Sunning themselves blissfully on beds of seaweed or even the wooden boardwalk, they seemed so happy.

We were getting a bit annoyed with the other tourists ignoring all the signs about keeping one’s distance, and half-hoping someone would get chomped by an angry seal. We hiked up to the cliff top for even more amazing views of the peninsula and the crystal blue Pacific.

Merryl had mentioned Hanmer Springs as a nice place to visit so we detoured over there on our way out of Kaikoura. The drive itself was worth mentioning - completely desolate and beautiful. We found a spot where we could pull off the highway with fantastic views of the valley below us, and set up our picnic table for our usual lunch of bread, cheese, hummus and apples. People waved to us as they drove by, although only about 3 or 4 cars passed.

Hanmer Springs is a lovely little resort town with public hot springs - big pools of all different temperatures. We had a nice relaxing warm soak, just the thing after a long week of driving, and on we went, stopping in Christchurch for the evening.

Baby tuatara

The next day we drove on to Dunedin and then on to Invercargill and Bluff, at the very south end of the South Island. Here we visited with Steph’s cousin Mark who showed us around the Maori school where he works. They had a master carver visiting and we got to see lots of their work, including some Mark had done, which was very impressive. We visited the Invercargill museum, which has an excellent Tuatara display - a sort of prehistoric lizard that somehow still exists, unique to NZ. We saw Henry, a tuatara over 100 years old as well as lots of baby tuataras. Perhaps they wouldn't be classified as cute, exactly, but it was definitely cool to see them. We had a great Indian dinner at Mark’s place, enjoyed one of the wines we’d bought at the winery, and departed before dawn the next day for our long drive to Milford Sound.

The drive out to Milford Sound is amazingly picturesque and we stopped a few times to check out parks like Mirror Lakes and “The Chasm”, with unique rock pools carved into bizarre geometric shapes by the rushing river.

We headed out on a boat cruise that took us sailing around Milford Sound, a fjord that is so steep the boat can sail right up next to the cliff sides. The cliffs are home to what’s known as a “catastrophic forest”, because the trees grow straight out of the moss on the rocks until they eventually get too big and heavy, and then tumble down the sides. The views are stunning and the scale of things are just impossible to grasp. A 6,000 ft mountain erupts straight up out of the water but it’s not until you get up right beside it and it just disappears vertically that you realize how vast it is.  We sailed up to a waterfall that from afar didn’t look particularly high, but in fact is higher than Niagara Falls, and the boat captain managed to give the passengers a good soaking by sailing right up next to it. Up close the volume and force of water was unbelievable! We sailed out to the mouth of the Tasman Sea where the waves were again a little choppy - we looked at each other with trepidation. We imagined how it might have been for Captain Cook who sailed past twice in terrible weather, both times missing the entrance to the Sound and what would have been relief from the storms that lash the west coast. Needless to say this was a highlight of our trip.

Milford Sound

After a three-hour cruise that happily didn’t end in a shipwreck, we headed back to Te Anau for the night. Te Anau has a lovely lake and decent restaurants but seemed pretty sleepy. We did our laundry at the holiday park before heading off to Dunedin.

Dunedin Railway Station

Dunedin is the “Edinburgh of the Southern Hemisphere”; a lovely little university town with a great downtown and even a castle! Supposedly the railway station is the most photographed building in New Zealand.

We stayed at the Regis Park Hotel which had a cool old-timey elevator with a gate you had to open and close. The heart of downtown is the Octagon which is full of restaurants, shops and university students. Other highlights were the Otago Peninsula, home to Larnach Castle, and Sandfly Bay, a wildlife refuge. With a steep hike down the sandy cliffs you can see sea lions and the rare yellow-eyed penguins or hoiho. There were two of them up on the cliffs, but they’re scared of humans so we didn’t get too close.

Sandfly Bay

Larnach Castle was great as well - similar to Casa Loma in Toronto, it was built in the late 1890s by William Larnach for his wife, although it was probably a bit cursed since he committed suicide shortly afterwards, as did his son. Some stunning woodwork in there although it’s only partially restored. A steep hike up a narrow staircase meant we could stand out on the castle’s ramparts and look out over the whole peninsula. Seeing that view we understood why they built that castle there. Our last stop was the Dunedin botanical gardens, absolutely glorious. It’s free, full of amazing exotic birds and flora from all over the world. We stopped at the Mediterranean garden, complete with marble fountain, where Richard had a little nap in the sunshine.

Before we left Dunedin, we were sure to stop in for a tour of the Cadbury chocolate factory! We were witness to an impressive ONE TON of liquid chocolate falling from the sky, and learned about how various types of chocolate bars are made. Lots of chocolate was handed out, including some unique New Zealand-only treats. Apparently Kiwis prefer marshmallow-ey chocolates including the "fish bar". Yum! No Oompa-Loompas were in evidence, but lots of impressively twisty pipes and conveyor belts.

Steampunk HQ, Oamaru

On our way back north, we visited Oamaru, which was home to some amazingly impressive buildings - everything looked like a stately Victorian bank. It’s also home to New Zealand’s “Steampunk HQ”, which was a warehouse, as the proprietor informed us, “full of crazy shit”.

There was a fire breathing steam train you could set in roaring motion for $2, and weird statues, time travel mysteries and a lot of crazy old stuff that had been found and welded together or something. We freaked out an American couple who wondered if we were part of the exhibit. Then we all went into “The Portal”, a sort of light show inside a room fully surrounded with mirrors, which was a cool experience. Richard believes we may have been transported to another dimension, but somehow returned to this one unscathed.

We continued on to Christchurch for our last day on the South Island where we had to return Wicket to the depot. We toured downtown which was a little emotional for Steph in particular as she had been there before the 2011 earthquake, so the contrast was pretty extreme. We visited the so-called Cardboard Cathedral, an impressive structure put up using 96 cardboard tubes, and the memorial for the earthquake victims. Downtown is still in a pretty bad shape.

"Cardboard" Cathedral

We made a visit to Addington Raceway to see the greyhounds in action. It was a nice venue and a beautiful day but nobody else was in attendance. We relaxed in the stands and watched a few races of some very fast and excited dogs. ‘Vindaloo Vinny’ romped to victory.

Releasing the Hounds

Then yet another botanical gardens, this one with fantastic rose gardens and duck ponds. A nice relaxing way to end our trip.

Christchurch Botanical Gardens

We rushed to get Wicket cleaned up and vacuumed out before heading to the airport.

Our last night in Auckland we went for dinner in the happening part of town called Britomart, which seems to be where all the New Zealanders are. After two weeks of having the country to ourselves, finally we found some other humans. We actually had to wait to be seated at a restaurant! We dodged a bit of a downpour and then had some extremely good and fairly interesting Mexican food. It was different from the Baja or Tex-Mex you get in these parts.

Our last day in Auckland we took the ferry over to Devonport, which seemed to be sort of the West Vancouver of Auckland - a nice seaside town with one main street and a really interesting naval museum. Lots of history of the Navy and their various battles, which was very well done.

Devonport

On our way out we helped a fellow with a tiny little boat (a Laser) who was late for his race store his boat trailer safely, and then sat on a park bench and watched what seemed to be a flotilla of hundreds of sailboats go by. 



Finally we took the bus to the airport and headed home. Happy to be going home but sad to leave behind such a beautiful, welcoming place.