Kiwi Country

Somehow we have managed to time our arrival in the southern hemisphere with the beginning of the southern winter. However it isn't really very cold, just a bit wet, and on the plus side there aren't many tourists around and everything is cheap in the low season. We also arrived in New Zealand just in time to watch the English rugby team getting destroyed by the All Blacks, which was probably for the best for us as we found the dodgiest pub in Auckland in which to watch it.



Despite the cold (and partly because it is so cheap in winter) we decided to hire a campervan for our trip around New Zealand. We survived the cold so far, with a little help from our sleeping bag, three duvets and hot water bottle.








Ours is quite a small van, a converted Toyota Hiace who we have named Topsy after the rugby player Topsy Ojo, because he is going to take on New Zealand single-handed. The back of the van has been converted into a living area, with a table and chairs that convert into a bed, a little kitchen, and a roof extension where we store our rucksacks and blankets.

We have been driving all over the north island, mostly sleeping for free in picnic areas by the sides of the roads but occasionally stopping at proper sites in order to wash (ourselves and our clothes) and to recharge electrical equipment. The only problem we have had so far was when we parked on a grass verge one night, then woke up the next morning to discover that everthing was frozen over, and that when we tried to drive back onto the road the wheels couldn't get any grip on the icy grass and we just skidded instead. We finally escaped by collecting bits of gravel from the road and arranging them in front of the wheels to give us something to drive on.

Heading south from Auckland, our first stop was Rotorua, an area of volcanic and thermal activity. Close to the town there are several thermal reserves, each with its own selection of crowd-pleasing smoking craters, geysers and boiling pools of mud. There were also some hot springs where we soaked for far too long and emerged looking like red prunes.


No tourist attraction in New Zealand is complete without its own kiwi house, where one or two of the birds are kept in a special darkened cage. They have really long beaks and apparently they are the only bird in the world to have nostrils at the ends of them. They prod the ground with their beaks before every step, and they remind us of blind people walking with white sticks. They aren't blind though, just really stupid. While it is of course very sad that they are facing extinction, part of us suspects that that this is the inevitable result of natural selection rather than anything that humans have done.

Next we headed to one of our favourite places so far, the Waitomo caves, where you can take an underground boat trip through the caves which are lit by millions of tiny glow worms hanging just above your head.
Finally, we headed to Wellington, aptly described by someone we met as the most pointless capital city in the world. From there we drove Topsy onto the ferry for the journey to the South Island.