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Wellington to Christchurch

Big travel day today. We took the 9am ferry from Wellington to Picton on South Island. It was a little over 3 hours, but it was like a mini cruise, they had movie theaters, a magic show, food etc. From Picton it was about a 5 hour drive down the coast to Christchurch. There is a lot of construction that delayed us quite a bit. I guess it is repairs from the big earthquake from a couple years ago that severely damaged the highway.

The drive was quite beautiful. At first we felt like we were in California because the hills were dry brown, and the valleys were filled with vineyards. They even have the “fire risk: very high” signs like California. I guess the similar climates are why they can both produce good wines.

It is very warm here, and I heard on the radio that they are setting heat records in the southern part of the island. Down here the further south you go the cooler it should get, theoretically. Right now it is getting hotter as we move south.

This is our trip so far, in New Zealand.

Tomorrow we pick up the RV. I’m not sure how much WiFi access we’ll have while RVing, so updates might be more sporadic.

David

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Wellington

Yesterday we drove from Taupo to Wellington, but not before stopping at the Taupo farmers market to check it out. It was a cross between a flea market and farmers market.

The drive was long and pretty scenic but it was mostly overcast and we did get some heavy rain, which unfortunately obscured the mountains. Anyway we arrived in Wellington and checked into our Airbnb in time for us to go out for a short walk and Yanmei took this:

Today we decided to go to Zealandia, which our host recommended. It is a 500 acre sanctuary where they are trying to restore the habitat to pre-human levels for plants and birds. Until humans arrived there were no mammals in New Zealand, which meant that birds thrived here. Humans not only hunted the birds, they also brought predators like rats, possums and cats that severely damaged a lot of bird species. Zealandia is surrounded by a predator-proof fence to keep all those things out, which makes it feel a bit like Jurassic Park.

Inside are rare bird species and native forests.

The lizard above is a Tuatara, which is the last living species from its order. The rest went extinct with the dinosaurs.

After Zealandia we did some shopping in Wellington, before heading back. Now I’m writing this blog before dinner 😀.

David

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Mt Maunganui to Taupo

We arrived to an Airbnb in Tauranga last night, it was a beautiful little one room cottage newly built on a small farm. Yanmei got a few fresh eggs from the chickens.

The next morning we headed to Mount Maunganui, which is a very small mountain on the coast at the tip of the peninsula. We could see it from our room (on the right, below).

It is part of the Bay of Plenty and is a popular beach destination, especially now in the summer. Hiking up Mt Maunganui is one of the top recommendations on TripAdvisor.com for North Island, so that was our goal.

First we took a few photos in the harbor.

Our host recommended we start early because it gets hot, but of course we didn’t listen and started our hike at 10am, and it was starting to get warm, although is was partially overcast as you can see from the pictures. The hike was moderately challenging. Yanmei really enjoyed the views and wants to come back.

We made it to the summit in a bit over an hour, then headed back down a different route. As we got closer to the beach we could see there was lots of activity.

We had lunch and then headed to our next stop: Taupo. Taupo is a large lake in the center of North Island. They call it the Great Lake. It was about 160km. Shortly into the drive it started to downpour rain, and there was some lightning and a few big cracks of thunder.

After the initial downpour, the rain eased up and after about half an hour it was over. We got to Taupo safely and checked into another good Airbnb picked by Yanmei, with a little bit of a lake view. After resting a bit we decided to check out Huka Falls, which was okay, but we’ve seen a lot of great waterfalls, so…

More interesting to me was this sign:

It’s the first “no drones” sign I’ve seen. I bet they will become a lot more common in the next few years. Anyway after that we headed back to our room for the night and there was a pretty go sunset from our view.

David