Auckland & Spookers

Auckland has been treating us well so far! Neither of us realised, but in New Zealand it is a legal requirement to keep your shop closed on Good Friday (as well as Easter Sunday). So we went into the city for some shopping on Friday, and it was a bit like a ghost town. The only shops that can legally open were souvenir shops, but they were all pretty tacky so we didn't buy anything. Instead, we headed back to the holiday park to cook an awesome lunch of couscous, chicken and spinach in pitta breads. It was nice to be able to use a proper kitchen at the resort, instead of the single stove we have in the back of the camper. As it was raining, our food was followed up by a trip to the cinema to see the new Fast and Furious film (more for my benefit than Izzy's, but she seemed to enjoy it).

Last night we went to a haunted horror/theme park known as 'Spookers', which was about an hour's drive south of the city. From what I had read online it was going to be pretty scary, and they were right. I've never come across anything like it in England.

Spookers is set in a closed and run down phsyciatric hospital, and is only open at night. While in the queue for tickets, 'scare' actors in full movie style, gory prosthetics walk around you. Our first encounter of the night was a guy with his face gashed up, bleeding all over himself who grabbed Izzy by the shoulder and held a pretend (but very real looking) knife to her neck. Once inside, we walked around the building in near darkness and through different themed rooms. The actors hide in shadows and behind curtains and doors all over the place and jump out at you when you least expect it; they grab your legs and neck. Some of the themes included a man covered in blood holding a machette in a room filled with body parts, another was a psychiatric patient sat in a corner shaking. We had to creep past him to get to the exit from the room, just as we thought we had passed him he started jumping and screaming right behind us. At one point we were walking down a narrow corridor in pitch black darkness, with one hand on the wall to guide us, while someone from above tried to grab us. It's hard to explain it without making it sound completely not scary, but it genuinely was! I couldn't take any photos, but here are a couple from their website...

Today we have been in the city checking out the shops, I didn't really spend any money as we don't have long left travelling and it would be nice to get home with a small amount of money for the summer, but Izzy picked up a few small things here and there. It was nice to be outside as it was probably the hottest day since we have been in New Zealand at around 25degrees celsius.

Craters of the Moon & Auckland

We stayed in Taupo for a couple of days in the hope of meeting up with Luke and Nicola, but unfortunately they were busy on the day they arrived and we are running out of time so couldn't hang around any longer.

On our way out of town Izzy and I visited the 'Craters of the Moon' just north of the lake before heading onwards to Rotorua. A large part of the North Island has natural thermal springs in the ground, and the 'Craters of the Moon' is a small area of condensed geothermal fumaroles. The walk that has been laid out by the Deptartment of Conservation weaves around most of the small craters in the floor. Some of which were a good 15-20 metres across with steam pouring out of them. The water reaches 140degrees and so sulphurous smelling steam bursts out of the ground and the acidic muddy water turns the edges of the steam holes bright red.

After spending an hour so walking around the steam holes, we got back in the car to drive an hour north to Rotorua, another town famous for its thermal springs, rightly so as you can smell the eggy sulphurous air of the town before you get there. Rotorua has plenty of shops for buying souvenirs, although it's hard finding things to buy as everything is either jade or bone carved into various maori symbols, and I'm not massively keen on either of those. We spent one night just outside of the town centre away from the smell, and moved onto Auckland the next day.

We arrived in Auckland early evening, and had a bit of a drive around the city to get our bearings. Izzy and I both agreed that we are going to enjoy this city. New Zealand has been very small communities spread out between vast distances and as nice as towns like Wellington have been, they are still small and lack a good variation of shops cafes and what not. However, the downside to Auckland is that because the city is so big, we struggled to find a rest area to sleep in. Even the internet says that there aren't any and that the police are hot on people sleeping in cars in this area.

After driving for a good hour or so we eventually found a DOC Marine Reserve car park to sleep in, although I doubt we were allowed to! Our alarm was set for 5:45am to get out of there before the DOC staff arrive to open the gates at 6am. We have now checked into a holiday park, which is costing us a fair bit, but at least we have saved plenty from the free DOC campsites we have been staying in.

This morning we went to Onehunga, just south of the city centre to visit an outlet shopping centre that Izzy had seen advertised. It wasn't as good as were hoping and the area was a bit of a dive!

This afternoon/evening we visited Auckland's SkyTower, which is the tallest building in New Zealand and the Southern Hemisphere. For $25 each we got to go to the main observation level on floor 52 and the upper deck on floor 60. We timed it just right to catch the sunset and the building and car lights beginning to illuminate the city streets.

We fly from Auckland on the 25th, so I think the plan is to spend the next few days in the city until then as there will be plenty to do (like visit a horror theme park at night! - check back after Friday for news about that)...

Back to the North Island, Lake Taupo

We got to Picton and booked our ferry back to the North Island for that night. It was supposed to leave at 10:30pm but didn't end up leaving until 2am for one reason or another. The sea was particularly rough, so I didn't manage to sleep at all. We arrived in Wellington at 6am, and drove to the nearest layby to catch up on some more sleep, before heading into town again. Both Izzy and I really enjoyed Wellington last time we were here and we knew there was still plenty for us to see.

Our flight leaves Auckland on the 25th, so we decided to head north to spend the next week in Lake Taupo, Rotorua, Bay of Plenty, Bay of Islands and Auckland. After a long evening of driving around 200 miles we reached Lake Taupo. Our first night in New Zealand was spent here, although we didn't stop to see anything as we bee-lined straight for the South Island.

Yesterday we visited Huka Falls. It's a waterfall on the Waikato River that runs off of the lake. Normally the river is 100 metres wide, but at the point of the Huka Falls, the water squeezes through a 15 metre gap. At the end of the gorge where the water falls, it is gushing through at 220,000 litres per second.

Nelson to Picton

We spent the night near the Abel Tasman National Park, but the weather has turned bad and we've had nothing but torrential rain for a few days now. I was hoping to do some kayaking, which is the best way to see the area but there are no lakes so you have to explore from the sea. Neither of us were really in the mood for kayaking in the choppy seas for a few hours in the rain so we moved on to the town of Nelson.

It has been raining in Nelson too, but at least here there are shops and other things to explore. New Zealand among other things, is famous for i's pies so we have been sampling plenty of those (I had a chicken and camerbert which was delicious!) along with lots of coffee in all the cafes in town with free wifi - keeps us out of Mcdonalds for their free wifi.

We visited Jans Hensen Jewellers, who were comissioned by Peter Jackson to make the ring for the Lord of the Ring's movies, and a few other shops around.

We're back in Picton now for the ferry crossing back to the North Island which we will be taking tonight at 22:30. We've seen so much already I can't belive there is a whole other island to explore.

P.S. It's a bit late coming, but you can now get notifications of my new posts by entering your email on the right hand side.

New Zealand North Island, Wellington

Since my last post we covered another 400-500 kms, unfortunately driving a camper van and staying in free campsites to save money means the only accessible wifi is in Mcdonalds and cafes. We carried on through the North Island, and took the scenic route past the mountains in Ruahine National Park. We stopped off a few times, but we were keen to keep up the pace and get to the South Island as we'll be coming back to the North Island for our flight to Fiji in late April. Our main break of the day was in a small town called Masterton where we caught the sun setting.

After the sun had gone down we carried on another 10-20kms to Featherston to find another free DOC (Department Of Conservation) camp site. We woke up the next morning and found ourselves set right in the middle of the mountains next to a gorge with a river running through it. An early start had us back on the road down to Wellington where we spent the rest of the afternoon. Wellington is the southernmost town in the North Island and is the main transport link to the South Island via a few ferry companies.

The town itself is really nice, lots of history mixed with lots of modern buildings. Probably the best museum I have ever visited is Te Papa in Wellington, and what's better is that it was free. We spent a few hours going through the exhibits as it was so interesting. They have the world's only colossal squid on display (dead might I add!) which weighs 495kgs and is 4 metres long and in the same section were several skeletons on display from various huge whales. One of my other favourite exhibits was 'Awesome Forces' which was about the earthquakes and tsunamis which have hit New Zealand. There is a mock house set up that shakes to mimic the experience of an earthquake.

We booked a ferry for the next morning to cross to the South Island. It was bloody expensive at about $215 for the two of us and our camper. It took about three hours, which felt an age when the seas were really choppy and making me feel sick! I left Izzy inside and went out on deck for a bit to get of fresh air, when just at that second hundreds of dolphins were jumping out of the water around the boat.